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WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 



BY 

EEV. J. B. GROSS, 

AUTHOR OF " THE HEATHEN RELIGION IN ITS POPULAR AND SYMBOLICAL DEVELOP- 
MENT ;" OF " THE DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER, AS SET FORTH IN THE BOOK 
OF CONCORD, CRITICALLY EXAMINED AND ITS FALLACY DEMONSTRATED;" 
OF "THE TEACHINGS OF PROVIDENCE, OR NEW LESSONS ON OLD SUB- 
JECTS;" OF "THE PARSON ON DANCING, AS IT IS TAUGHT IN THE ' 
BIBLE, AND WAS PRACTICED AMONG THE ANCIENT GREEKS 
AND ROMANS ;" OF " THOUGHTS FOR THE FIRESIDE AND 
THE SCHOOL ;" OF " THOUGHTS FOR THE FIRESIDE 
AND THE SCHOOL, SECOND SERIES;" OF " OLD 
FAITH AND NEW THOUGHTS ;" OF " TRUTH 
IN RELIGION, OR HONESTY IN OUR FAITH 
AND WORSHIP;" OF " THE BELIEF 
IN IMMORTALITY, ON PURELY 
LOGICAL principles;" OF 
" SIN RECONSIDERED 
AND ILLUSTRATED," 



d 



" Cease to do evil." — Isaiah, i. 16. 
" Virtue only makes our bliss below 



PHILADELPHIA 

B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 

18 82. 







/A 



Copyright, 1882, by Rev. J. B. Gross. 



DEDICATION. 



To those of my fellow-citizens, who have learned 
properly to realize the difference between virtue and vice, 
and who zealously strive to disseminate a just and lively 
appreciation of it among mankind, the following pages 
are respectfully inscribed by their sincere friend and 
cordial fellow-helper — 

THE AUTHOE. 



1* 



PKEFACE. 



Whether we contemplate man in the light of 
his moral and intellectual faculties, or confine 
our scrutiny to the study of his bodily structure 
and functions, it is strikingly evident that the 
Creator has designed him for happiness. But as 
happiness — as the history of all nations in every 
age of the world, plainly demonstrates, cannot 
be attained without an upright life, that is, the 
life that is appropriately normal to man, it is 
clear that unless he devotes himself to such a 
life, he neither is happy nor can be in accord 
with the Divine will. On the contrary, he must 
be unhappy just in proportion as he fails in the 
realization of such a life; for precisely to the 
extent of such failure, he is the slave of vice, 
and consequently inimical to virtue, the inevitable 
condition of moral well-being. These proposi- 
tions I hold to be self-evident, that is, " evident 
— according to Webster, " without proof or 
reasoning," and therefore decisive. 



8 PREFACE. 

The inquiry, "What makes us unhappy? and 
which forms the pregnant and important theme 
of the present Essay, it shall be my endeavor to 
illustrate and enforce by appropriate references 
to various familiar examples of deviations from 
moral rectitude among mankind, considered both 
in their general and concrete manifestations. 
That its scope is at once ample, and its thorough 
investigation not without difficulty, must be ap- 
parent to every reflecting mind, from a knowl- 
edge of the vast amount of unhappiness which 
prevails in the human family, and the conse- 
quent greatness and malignity of the evil, which 
vice or moral obliquity must produce, both in 
the individual and collective phases of man, con- 
sidered as a free-agent. Such being the case, I 
am far from presuming that on the present occa- 
sion, I shall exhaust this copious subject, and will 
therefore feel quite satisfied if, in the following 
effort, I can throw so much light upon it as will 
elicit a degree of earnest and sober attention, 
necessary to lead to a reformation and, conse- 
quently, to a happy, ameliorated condition of a 
morbid and debased human conduct. Or, in 
other words, if I can succeed to enlist sufficient 
interest among my readers on the side of virtue, 



PREFACE. 9 

to diminish the appalling amount of misery, 
which is now so largely incident to a vicious or 
faulty life, I shall seek no other reward but the 
felicitous conviction, that — in the pithy language 
of the immortal Twickenham bard, I have been 
thus enabled to " vindicate the ways of God to 



Wilkes-Barre, Pa., October, 1882. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEK I. 

PAGE 

The Immorality, usually termed Vice, is one of the Sa- 
lient Elements in our Unhappiness 13 

CHAPTEE II. 

The Bad Bringing-up of Children, may be set down as 
another Fruitful Source of our Unhappiness 23 

CHAPTEK III. 
False Articles of Faith too, are a Source of Much Un- 
happiness 31 

CHAPTER IV.. 
In which the Causes are indicated why Marriages often 
produce Unhappiness - 45 

CHAPTEE V. 
Among the Many Causes of our Unhappiness, Sectarian- 
ism is not the Least 56 

CHAPTEE VI. 

In which will be shown the Sad Part which Drunkenness 

plays in our Unhappiness G8 

11 



12 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VII. 

PAGE 

Want of Eeligious Principles tends likewise to make us 
Unhappy 81 

CHAPTER VIIL 
Hypocrisy — as is well known, figures largely as a Cause 
of our Unhappiness 91 

PARAGRAPH I. 

Hypocrisy in its Scripture-Traits , 92 

PARAGRAPH II. 

Hypocrisy in its Present or General Manifestations 99 

Conclusion , 104 

CHAPTER IX. 

In which are pointed out Some Defects of the Common- 
School System of Pennsylvania, and is demonstrated 
that — not working quite evenly ) it is: notwithstanding 
its Many Advantages, by no means Faultless, and, 
hence, a Source of Several Grave Evils 106 

CHAPTER X. 

The Unseemly Manner in which People mourn for the 
Dead, tends not a little to make Mankind Unhappy 120 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 



CHAPTER I. 



The Immorality, usually termed Vice, is one of the Salient 
Elements in our Unhappiness. 

Vice, implying depravity or corruption of 
manners, is mainly divisible, I conceive, into the 
following sinful habits : Drunkenness, Gambling, 
and Licentiousness. 

First, Drunkenness. — Drunkenness, according 
to Webster, is " habitual inebriety, or intoxica- 
tion."' It is evident that a person who is thus 
slavishly addicted to the use of spirituous liquors, 
cannot be in a healthy or normal state, either of 
body or of mind, for he leads an intemperate and 
therefore vitiating life, which is the exact contrary 
of a temperate life, which — according to the Di- 
vine ordination, it eminently behooves him to 
lead. Of course such persistent transgressor of 

2 13 



14 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY f 

God's laws : indelibly impressed upon the human 
constitution, is guilty of a grievous sin, in which 
many of his fellow-beings will be likewise in- 
volved, as he will not hesitate to disseminate the 
baneful seeds of a great and already wide-spread 
evil wherever his pernicious influence extends. 

Behold now the deleterious, stimulating and 
narcotic effects of the intoxicating draught; the 
inflamed eyes and bloated visage; the irritable 
temper ; the stolid look, of the drunkard ! Mark 
how his limbs tremble ; his tongue has grown 
profane ; his bearing coarse and vulgar ! He 
that was once gentle and peaceful, is now quar- 
relsome, and he that used to neglect no duty, is 
oblivious of responsibility ! Alas, what misery 
the drunkard inflicts both upon himself and upon 
society, by contracting the evil habit of this dis- 
graceful and suicidal vice ! Can it seem any 
longer strange that there should be nnhappiness 
in society wherever this Upas-blight casts its 
deadly shadow ? Ay, reader, drunkenness is in- 
deed " a monster of frightful mien," which — I 
wish I could add, in the w T ords of the poet, " to 
be hated, needs but to be seen;" for — I regret 
to say it, only too many see it ; love it ; and are 
ruined by it ! 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 15 

Second, Gambling next demands a concise at- 
tention. — According, again, to Webster, gambling 
is " the act or practice of gaming for money or 
other stake," instead of engaging in an honest 
legitimate pursuit, to procure a livelihood, in such 
manner as is proper and right according to the 
manifest ordinations of Providence. Gamblers — 
zealous to make the best of their chances, seek, 
as may well be supposed, to ruin, not by fair but 
by foul means, technically and most appositely 
called foul play. Hence the eminent authority 
just quoted, hesitates not to assert that gamblers 
" often or usually become cheats and knaves." 
They are, in fact, robbers under false pretenses, 
and, therefore, to make a living, they seldom fail : 
intent as they are upon plunder, to go forth to 
their nightly haunts, not inappropriately denom- 
inated hells, to entice the unsuspecting, and then 
at leisure to prey upon the substance of their 
easily duped and readily swindled victims. 

It is evident from the foregoing, that gambling 
is not only an eminently flagitious vice, but a 
flagrant violation of every principle of honor as 
well as just dealing toward our fellow-beings. 
The gambler — from the very nature of his ne- 
farious trade, habitually disregards the whole- 



16 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

some apostolic maxim " to do to others as we 
wish them to do to us," and instead of being 
influenced by its noble philanthropic spirit, he 
sordidly recognizes only the selfish, groveling 
principle which — insatiable of gain, urges him 
without scruple or hesitancy, to possess himself 
of the resources of others, in spite of the ruin 
to which he will most likely reduce his plundered 
dupes, or the feeble warnings of his abused and 
bleeding conscience to refrain from so wicked 
and despicable a pursuit. 

The gambler, I may observe, mostly spends his 
nights abroad. His eyes are not closed in a 
healthy sleep like those of the honest man. His 
place in his bed is vacant, and his parents, per- 
haps his wife, may mourn his absence ! His 
health is sure to be undermined by a life so little 
in accord with the essential conditions of Hygiene. 
Besides, the gambler generally soon acquires a 
taste for strong drink, when one more element 
of ruin and shame, is added to his profession and 
to his guilt ! Alas, what a mean worthless life 
the gambler leads : he contributes nothing to the 
common weal, but, vulture-like, preys on its vitals. 
Morality he boldly tramples under foot, while he 
spurns or ignores public opinion. Sympathy 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 17 

for the suffering is a passion unknown to him : 
selfishness is the idol most clear to his soul. In 
short, the confirmed gambler fears neither God 
nor regards man. What can any one expect of 
such a being, whose food and drink is the love 
of a vice of so black a dye ? Surely not happi- 
ness, only misery, unhappiness ! Hence to solve 
the question, What makes us unhappy ? we need 
but interrogate the gambler's haunts ; the gam- 
bler's fraudulent life : the gambler's end, they 
will suffice; for they tell a tale as dark as it is for- 
bidding and deplorable : the tale, alas, as Dryden 
says, that the gambler has " broken loose from 
moral bands !" 

Third, Licentiousness — by no means the least 
among the vices, claims here to be heard. — This 
vice may be defined as the reckless indulgence 
of the animal propensities. Persons, therefore, 
who are noted for such a life, are guilty of vice, 
and hence, vicious or depraved : in short, licen- 
tious persons, or — in other words, libertines. 
These traits of a licentious character, are deemed 
sufficiently discriminating to convey a pretty 
correct or at least a tolerably distinctive idea, of 
the subject, and will, consequently, not receive 
further definition, while it will be my object in 



18 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

the sequel, properly to dilate upon them, and 
thus illustrate them more fully by inviting atten- 
tion to such examples of licentiousness as may 
be deemed most familiar or most striking. 

First, the licentious person may be justly said 
to pay little or no regard to the connubial institu- 
tion, but gratifies the procreative instinct pro- 
miscuously, and without a feeling of compunction 
in consequence of a violation of the moral or 
civil law. All he seeks, and all about which he 
is concerned, is — without restraint, to gratify an 
endowment which he shares in common with the 
lower animals. Hence it happens that society is 
so sadly burdened and disgraced by the presence 
of multitudes of bastards and foundlings : a so- 
ciety too that loudly boasts to be Christian, and 
that, besides, is indefatigable in the conversion 
of the Heathens ! "What a sarcasm on the faith 
"once delivered to the saints." So fearfully cor- 
rupt is society at present, that it makes little dif- 
ference to its numerous libertines or licentious 
devotees, either male or female, whether they 
live within or without the matrimonial pale, 
they hesitate not; they fear not; they are not 
ashamed, to violate that part of the decalogue, 
which wisely prohibits all illicit commerce among 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 19 

the sexes, from a conviction, no doubt, that such 
vicious indulgence would necessarily tend se- 
riously to undermine, nay, eventually utterly to 
annihilate human happiness as well as sadly to 
endanger the perpetuation and integrity of man- 
kind. 

Second, the licentious person is often — as may 
readily be presumed, a great criminal, who 
scruples not to imbrue his hands in the blood of 
human beings while they are still in the fetal 
state. In criminal law, this heinous offence is 
designated the crime of abortion, and is thus de- 
fined in " Chambers's Encyclopaedia,'* "As the 
crime of administering to a pregnant woman any 
medicine, poison, or noxious drug, or of using 
any surgical instrument or other means, with the 
intent of procuring miscarriage." 

Though the crime of procuring abortion of 
the embryo-human being, is penal in England 
and Scotland, it is not held — I am told, to be 
murder : a crime which death only, it seems, can 
expiate, but a crime, though of an atrocious 
nature, yet one which it is sought adequately to 
punish, according to English jurisprudence, by 
" subjecting the offenders to transportation for 
life, or for not less than fifteen years, or to be 



20 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

imprisoned for any term not more than three 
years." 

According to " Purdon's Digest," the punish- 
ment of abortion in the United States, is, in sub- 
stance, thus briefly summed up : If the woman 
dies, a fine of five hundred dollars and imprison- 
ment by separate or solitary confinement at 
labor, not exceeding seven years. If, on the 
contrary, the woman's life is spared, the penalty 
is, a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars and 
imprisonment by separate or solitary confine- 
ment at labor, not exceeding three years. 

It is difficult to understand how the flagrant 
crime of abortion, naturally incident to a licen- 
tious life, can be excluded from the category of 
murder. Is the fetus, however nascent its devel- 
opment may still be, not potentially a human be- 
ing? Does not the impregnated ovum contain 
the germ of the future man or woman ? How 
then can the destruction of fetal life in any of 
even its most incipient stages, be a crime of less 
atrocity than murder, or be expiated on principles 
of juridical consistency, by less penalty than the 
law now annexes to the willful destruction of hu- 
man life ? For every time a fetus is destroyed, 
there is virtually one human being less, and so 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPYt 21 

far God's purpose to propagate the human race 
according to pre-ordained laws, is frustrated, as it 
ia by the deliberate deprivation of a more mature, 
or emphatically adult life. I see essentially no 
difference. 

Affain, I think no one of any ordinary habits 
of careful reflection, can longer wonder that 
where such unnatural, such shocking licentious- 
ness reigns, our happiness must be seriously, nay, 
fatally injured; and that no proposition is more 
apparent, or ranks nearer to a truism, than the 
assumption, that to escape the doom of being un- 
happy, we must as much as possible, keep our- 
selves most rigidly unsullied: undepraved: un- 
done, by the monster giant-vice of licentiousness. 

Finally, I may observe that the most remark- 
able feature in this investigation, is the appalling 
fact that not only prostitutes, of whom nothing 
better is generally expected, are guilty of the 
crime of procuring abortion, and who notori- 
ously live by the wages of lewdness, but likewise 
ladies, so called, who move in high places, and 
often receive the homage of the elite of society! 
That some of this society is exceedingly corrupt, 
and these ladies, who would enjoy but not bear, 
the burden and cares of conjugal life are heinous 



22 WHAT MAKES VS UNHAPPY? 

criminals in the sight of God and all right-think- 
ing men, who can doubt ? Let me tell them that 
they will have much to answer at the tribunal of 
their insulted Maker, for the injury they do to 
themselves in both health and morals, as well as 
for the sin which they commit against society and 
the human race ! 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 23 



CHAPTER II. 

The Bad Bringing-up of Children, may be set down as 
another Fruitful Source of our Unhappiness. 

In accordance with a Divine provision, children 
immediately derive their being through the agency 
of their parents, and, hence, are to be deemed 
their offspring as well as direct representatives. 
Their filial relation is, therefore, a dependent 
one; so dependent indeed, that in its earliest 
stages, it is distinguished by their utter helpless- 
ness, and consequently requires much careful 
nurture, beside the exercise of a tender and 
ceaseless vigilance. Here then is happily laid 
the foundation for the judicious use of a proper 
parental authority, as likewise for the introduc- 
tion of an appropriate system of education : a 
happy correlation — absolute dependence on the 
one hand, and on the other, ample means to sup- 
ply its wants ! 

The control and bringing-up of children — I 



24 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

may observe, should begin as soon as the infant 
mind is susceptible of instruction, otherwise chil- 
dren will be apt to become self-willed, and diffi- 
cult to bring under due subjection. Let them 
but know that they are master, and the natural, 
healthful relation between them and the parents, 
being thus unfortunately reversed, peace and 
good understanding among the parties will cease 
to be practicable, and unhappiness in the family — 
as may readily be conceived, will be the inevita- 
ble consequence, simply because parents are false 
to their trust, and children have become rebels! 
It is to be borne in mind, however, that this bane- 
ful subversion of order in the household, is not 
always confined within its narrow limits, but, on 
the contrary, frequently overleaps their bounds 
and — boldly no less than ruthlessly, invading the 
ranks of society, spreads simply by the force of 
example, the dire spirit of discord, and thus 
greatly multiplies one of the earliest and, by no 
means, unimportant causes of unhappiness. 

In the attempt to bring up their children, it is 
often the case that parents spoil their tempers by 
harsh or unkind treatment, and that, instead of 
making themselves beloved by them — a circum- 
stance so essential to their dutiful behavior, they 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 25 

fill their souls with aversion and dislike toward 
those who should be dearer to them than all else 
on earth. Of course, happiness is not to be 
thought of under such ungenial relations. Chil- 
dren, I may further state, should ordinarily be 
addressed in an earnest yet affectionate tone, and 
stringent measures should never be resorted to 
until all cases of disobedience shall have been 
first duly discussed and set in their proper light, 
in a kind and rational manner with the offending 
child, that it may be made to feel its guilt, and 
properly to appreciate the evil which must neces- 
sarily follow bad or immoral conduct. By no 
means should parents indulge in the habit of 
scolding their children, as it tends to harden 
them, and is, besides, a rude and vulgar habit, ill 
becoming either the duties or the profession of 
the Christian. Nor — it is clear, must they ever 
correct their children to gratify angry passion, 
but solely for their good ; always let it be done in 
a spirit of love, and under a lofty sense of doing 
a solemn but painful duty. Obedience to reason- 
able and just demands however, must be rigidly 
insisted upon, and lawful parental authority 
promptly vindicated. Any other method of dis- 
cipline, essentially differing from the kind which 



26 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

has been here pointed out, must be destructive 
of the true ends of the family-institution, and 
can lead only to decided unhappiness, as a sad 
and extensive experience everywhere amply tes- 
tifies. 

Children should, by all means, be brought up 
to some useful pursuit, whether it is industrial, 
literary, artistic, or scientific, otherwise happiness 
can never fall to their lot, or the hearts of their 
parents be ever made glad. The German prov- 
erb, " Miisziggang is aller Laster Anfang;" that 
is, idleness is the source of every sin, has been 
abundantly and mournfully verified in every age 
of the world. Hence, too, we may properly un- 
derstand and duly estimate the Divine injunc- 
tion: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat 
bread." Idleness is a vice of vast proportions, 
and what is worse, it seems daily to increase. 
Owing to this appalling fact, individual happiness 
and social prosperity steadily but surely dimin- 
ish. The only remedy is that every member of 
society shall awake to a just sense of the impend- 
ing danger, and consider himself under solemn 
obligation to make himself useful ; to sow r that 
he may reap, and thus to reduce the chances of 
the individual and social unhappiness, under 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY! 27 

which, alas, mankind at present so larg ; so 
grievously suffer and pine away. 

One of the r rincij al . is - u — in 

:y. is. undoubtedly, due to the bad, 
sive. and insolent behavior )f many of the chil- 
dren oi this gc Iless generation.* 8 . - 

rather, perversely are they brought up : so sla jk 
is the rein, which is held over them, that they are 
almost totally dev )id : that bashful reserve : that 
agreeable diffidence, which is at once so becom- 
ing, and so charming an ornament to the budding- 
age of childhood. They have of course, never 
n taught the wise lesson : or if they have, it 
is usually entirely ignored in their conduct, that 
" children may be seen, but must not be heard.'" 
in presence oi the aged. On the contrary, their 
assurance is complete, often startling, and they 
not only presume to lead in conversation, but to 
:_ \ ?t their elders in knowledge, which can only 
be acquired by mature study, or long and careful 
experience. Such impudent impertinence, or in 
other and more appropriate words. >-.s. is 

* In calling this generati I say that il 

abounds to a fearful degree in unprincipled, wicked people, 
without wishing to intimate that there are not still many good 
ones left, who have not " bowed unto Baal." 



28 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

eminently disgusting to all well-bred people ; a 
burning disgrace to parents; and a most prolific 
source of unhappiness to all sober and orderly 
citizens, who believe that it is pre-eminently the 
lovely and much to be commended virtue modesty 
that ought to clothe and adorn the young, and 
that consequently it behooves them to learn, not 
to teach ; to listen, not to talk ! I admire, nay, 
love children heartily, if they are w T ell-brought 
up ; if their behavior is retiring and proper, such 
as becomes them, and such as will make them 
and those around them happy ; but I dislike and 
instinctively shun them, if they are forward and 
boldfaced : it is then that they become offensive 
and are emphatically a nuisance, I will only add 
— in view of the great predominance of bad over 
good children, that it is high time that the ex- 
tremely pertinent apostolic teaching should be 
once more seriously, nay, prayerfully laid to 
heart, and that parents should earnestly bethink 
themselves and strive with all their energy and 
without delay, to bring up their children " in the 
nurture and admonition of the Lord," lest both 
miserably perish together ! 

Without proper religious instruction, I remark 
finally, children can neither become happy nor 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 29 

be good and reputable citizens; for religion — 
" pure religion and undefiled before God and the 
Father/' is a natural and necessary element in 
human well-being as well as one of the essential 
conditions of a harmonious and healthy mental 
and moral development, and, therefore, a neglect 
of it in the bringing-up of children, must in- 
evitably give a wrong bent to the youthful mind, 
and infallibly lead to unhappiness. They must, 
hence, be early and diligently taught the great 
lesson that there is a God, who is the adorable 
creator and governor of the world, and that to 
him we are strictly accountable for our conduct. 
From this august and benign being, who is pre- 
eminently the Father of mankind, we, moreover, 
receive " every good and perfect gift/' and chil- 
dren should consequently be carefully made ac- 
quainted with this no less weighty than delight- 
ful truth, and taught to be always devoutly 
thankful to God for the great and manifold 
blessings, which he so benignantly and profusely 
vouchsafes to us. Especially must a chief lesson 
in their tuition consist in the endeavor indelibly 
to impress upon their tender minds the indis- 
putable assurance, that if we would be happy 

and make others happy, we must — as much as 

3* 



30 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

possible, conform our lives to God's laws, and, 
accordingly, walk in his ways, if we would do 
our duty ; inherit the Divine blessing ; and be in 
turn a blessing to our fellow-beings. Such teach- 
ing and governance, it must be evident, is well 
calculated to implant in the juvenile breast a 
proper sense of order; to elevate and fix the 
moral tone of the character ; to disseminate right 
principles; and to lay a foundation, at once 
broad and deep, of human happiness, both here 
and hereafter! A stanza by a pious German 
hymnologist, will — I conceive, appropriately 
close this chapter. Thus sweetly, truly, sings 
the poet : 

" Eeligion von Gott gegeben, 
Sey ewig meinem Herzen werth ! 
"Wietrostlos wurd'ich oft erbeben, 
Wenn mich des Leben's Last beschwert I 
Nur du erheiterst meinen Sinn, 
Und fuhrst mich sanftzum Zielehin." 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY f 31 



CHAPTER III. 

False Articles of Faith too, are a Source of Much Unhap- 
piness. 



PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 

If there is any proposition in dogmatics, or — 
as "Webster defines the term, " doctrinal theol- 
ogy," which is intuitively evident, it is that re- 
ligious creeds ought to be reasonable, plausible, 
true, for then they would invariably prove a 
blessing, whereas — being destitute of those para- 
mount qualifications, as, alas, too many at present 
are, they cannot fail to prove a prolific source of 
decided and lasting unhappiness to their blindly 
attached adherents. I heartily pity the deluded 
victims of a spurious and unholy orthodoxy, and 
will, therefore, endeavor in this place, while I 
point out the nature and extent of the grievous 
evil under which they suffer, to set their unhappy 
situation in its true light and proper bearing. 



32 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

First, it is taught in most of the old orthodox 
creeds, that little children that die unbaptized, 
are lost, or at least that without it — according, 
for example, to the Augsburg Confession, they 
are not in favor with God.* The consequences 
which flow from a belief in so shocking a doc- 
trine, are often extremely deplorable ; for they 
largely involve the peace and, hence, the hap- 
piness of the unfortunate believer. It is the 
mothers, however, who chiefly suffer under the 
blighting influence of a teaching at once so cruel 
and so alarming. A fact, which may be readily 
understood, if we call to mind that the little ones 
are especially precious to the indomitable ma- 
ternal instinct, and that, therefore, in the eyes of 
the loving, tender mothers, and, indeed, in the 
eyes of all people, who are governed by the 
simple dictates of common sense, emphatically a 
sacred gift; a Godsend; a pledge of Divine 
love ; and an unmistakable sign of " good will 
toward men." 

Of the necessity of baptizing the little inno- 

* According to those wicked creeds, baptism is a saving 
ordinance, and children must be baptized *because, like the 
rest of mankind, they are all corrupt by the imputation of 
Adam's sin, and in a lost state I 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY* 33 

cents: the brightest, loveliest jewels, enshrined 

in the mother's inmost affections, to save them 

from perdition. Jesus, the savior, says not a 

word ! But it matters little in the opinions of 
some religious teachers, what lessons he incul- 
cates or omits, inasmuch as they find it more to 
their interest to introduce a scheme of salvation 
of their own devising than to listen to the plain 
teachings of onabused, impartial reason, humbly 
obedient to the instructions of the clear Gospel- 
light. The sad and lamentable consequence is 
that many mothers, and many other persons like- 
wise believe- — having been thus perversely edu- 
cated by an ignorant or crafty Church, in the 
absolute necessity of the baptism of infants as a 
means to save their souls from perdition ; souls 
that — instead of being tainted with the pollution 
of sin. know not even right from wrong, or good 
from evil; that cannot, therefore, sin. as sin im- 
plies moral agency, of which babies are yet in- 
capable. 

As to the revolting creed that little children 
are corrupt and. consequently, in a lost state, on 
account of Adam's sin. I have clearly shown in 
several of my Works; as " Old Faith and Xew 
Thoughts ;" " Sin Reconsidered and Illustrated ;" 



34 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

" Thoughts for the Fireside and the School, 
Second Series," &c., that that dogma is simply 
a blasphemous and ridiculous chimera : a fit 
specimen of a crass and insane Augustinian 
orthodoxy. 

Notwithstanding the utter fallacy of this anti- 
evangelical and forbidding dogma, mothers and 
all who are doomed by their credulity to share 
this heretical and repulsive faith, suffer im- 
mensely on account of their children in case 
they get sick while they are yet unbaptized, espe- 
cially if the sickness is threatening and the peril 
imminent. 0, how they will then fret, and moan, 
and sorrow, because they believe the dear, be- 
loved ones in clanger, because if, alas, they should 
die thus unloved and unredeemed, they cannot 
be happy but must, on the contrary, be — to say 
the least, in everlasting disfavor with God, their 
beneficent creator and father; or — in other words, 
infallibly undone ! Is there no remedy ? The 
minister or priest is sent for in breathless haste, 
but should he fail to respond to the pressing 
emergency, the only resource w r hich is still left 
to the trembling, grief-stricken souls, is to seek 
the services of any member of the faithful, that 
may be deemed most suitable on account of 



WHAT MAKES US UXHAPPV? 35 

his age or piety for the purpose, and to get him 

to perform — as best he may, the solemn rite, 
but should the search again prove futile, or 
the solicitation be uncomplied with, then all 
hope is extinct at least in the poor, misbelieving 
mother's breast; for her sweet, clear babe — she 
is told among some other equally veracious and 
edifying churchly lessons, is now in a state of mis- 
ery, because the eating of a forbidden fruit by a 
couple of persons 6000 years ago, has made it a 
reprobate and an outcast ! 

The unhappiness, which the despairing and 
woe-stricken mother in such a case, as also the 
rest of her devoutly believing and deeply sympa- 
thizing household, and, indeed, all radically and 
credulously orthodox Christians, who may be cog- 
nizant of the dismal and hopeless disaster, which 
has befallen her, is at once ineffable and com- 
plete ! 

Should not a belief that causes so much un- 
necessary anxiety and distress; ay, so much 
mourning and weeping, be at once and forever 
discarded, as one of the worst and most egre- 
gious heresies, which has ever debased and cursed 
the Christian name? Is it not high time that 
the Church — so long recreant of duty, should 



36 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY f 

make some amends for her false and wicked 
teaching, and — humbling itself in dust and ashes, 
proclaim aloud to the world, in conformity with 
the evangelical, consoling, and emphatically 
divine teaching of Jesus, Matthew xviii. 2-3 ; 
xix. 13-15, that little children are without sin, 
and, therefore, worthy — independently of all expi- 
atory agencies, of an heirship and the glories of 
eternal life ? Or, is it dead to all compassion for 
those it has during so many ages, made unspeak- 
ably wretched ? Awake, and unfeignedly confess 
that the doctrine of human depravity, is an un- 
qualified insult to the intelligence of the nine- 
teenth century, inasmuch as it is a most flagrant 
falsification of every historical or psychical expe- 
rience of mankind. In consonance with the fore- 
going disquisition, I am bold to say that the ab- 
surd doctrine of imputed or inherited sin, is an 
atrocious blasphemy against the clearly recog- 
nized principles of Divine justice, which — as 
every one's conscience teaches him, knows no 
punishment where there is no personal guilt.* 
Have pity, then — if that sentiment is not un- 

* Sin is not possible without an act of volition : a " volun- 
tary departure from rectitude or duty."; — Webster. 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 37 

known in your breasts, for the unhappy mothers, 
who mourn and wail for their children, according 
to the tenor of your false and murderous creed, 
which teaches them to deplore them as lost ! 

Finally, I may remark, as a further protest 
against the unscriptural and flagitious doctrine 
of original sin : that those persons, who believe 
that their unbaptized children are lost when they 
die, can never be happy, either here or hereafter. 
Salvation is absolutely irreconcilable with the 
belief that those we love with an all-absorbing 
and undying affection, are doomed to endless 
misery : with such appalling thoughts, culminat- 
ing in undoubted conviction, heaven w r ould be 
hell only under another name ! 

Second, the doctrine of Election — fraught with 
numerous decidedly salient elements of human un- 
happiness, merits a concise though somewhat crit- 
ical disquisition in this place. In his Theological 
Dictionary, Buck defines Election : the antithe- 
sis of Eejection, or the Divine ordination of a 
part of mankind to endless future misery, as 
" That eternal, sovereign, unconditional, particu- 
lar, and immutable act of God, whereby he se- 
lected some from among all mankind, and of 
every nation under heaven, to be redeemed and 



38 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

everlastingly saved by Christ." The proof-texts, 
to which the author refers, I omit, not conceding 
that any texts of Scripture that God would sanc- 
tion as emanating from him, can teach a doctrine 
in plain defiance of his universally recognized 
goodness and justice. 

"What first strikes us, in this monstrous creed, 
is the assertion, that the elect are predestined from 
eternity to be redeemed and saved by Christ. 
Now, if the Almighty did really at any time re- 
solve to carry out such election, what should have 
hindered him from directly executing his design ? 
Or, in other words, what need was there of a 
mediatorial agency to aid him in doing what was 
already virtually accomplished by a predeter- 
mined and unalterable decree ? If God wills 
anything, who can annul or make it void ? Does 
not this pernicious idea of election, imply a 
glaring contradiction, at the same time that it 
tacitly at least, expresses a doubt of God's om- 
nipotence? And is not, therefore, such an 
extravagant conception — as this theory of elec- 
tion premises, eminently derogatory to the char- 
acter of God, as well as most gravely reprehen- 
sible in those, who both foolishly and wickedly 
presume to entertain it ? But, alas, what else 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 39 

can be expected of predestinarianism : a crude 
and profane medley of inconsistencies ; fallacies ; 
and blasphemy? 

How, I further remark, can Christ perform 
the ardent functions of a redeemer and savior, in 
the sense and manner normally implied by these 
terms, if he is not in personal, actual relation 
with the part of mankind that is included in 
the decree of election ? Myriad millions of hu- 
man beings lived and died upon the earth, before 
he was born ; before ever there was a Gospel, a 
Christian Church, or Christian means of grace, 
and wdien, consequently, they could have no 
knowledge of him as a redeemer and savior. 
The same predicament is equally true of the in- 
numerable multitudes of our race that have suc- 
cessively appeared and disappeared here since his 
advent a little more than eighteen centuries ago, 
in Palestine — a little, insignificant, and obscure 
corner of the globe, without having derived the 
least benefit from him sotericdly ; that is, in a way 
to affect their happiness, or exalt their condition. 
Hence, to say that Christ performs the acts of a 
redeemer and savior, among any part of man- 
kind, among whom he has never been, or is to- 
tally unknown, as the Calvinists in effect do, is a 



40 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

flat contradiction as well as a glaring absurdity, 
clearly demonstrated to be such by the Savior 
himself, whose method of salvation is the exact 
opposite and virtual disavowal of the doctrine of 
election ! 

That under the circumstances here described, 
predestinarians should still think it necessary to 
resort to missionary efforts to convert and save 
any part of the human race, can, hence, appear 
in no other light but that of a deplorable fatuity, 
or as an instance of undoubted theological delu- 
sion ; for the act of election — which embraces 
peoples " from among all mankind, and every 
nation under heaven," is inexorably predeter- 
mined by God from all eternity, and, therefore, 
man's fate is irrevocably sealed, inasmuch as 
every one is already either saved or lost ; that is, 
included among the elect or damned : the elec- 
tion and, of course, the rejection also, being " im- 
mutable," it follows inevitably that man has been 
removed beyond the pale of human instrumen- 
talities. It is to be presumed, therefore, that 
those Christians who profess to believe in the 
doctrine of election, will dispense at least with 
the use of foreign missions, and apply the funds 
heretofore so uselessly lavished upon this delusive 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 41 

object, to the benefit of the poor at home, who — 
as Christ truly says, are always with us, and — 
whether they are elected or not, in the predesti- 
narian acceptation of the term, have need of the 
necessaries of life, and the sympathies of their 
fellow-beings. 

"What has been said of Christ, in relation to a 
mediatorial agency in the plan of election, holds 
no less true in respect to the superfluousness of a 
supernatural revelation to mankind, after their 
destiny has been irrevocably fixed by the immu- 
table decree of the Almighty. What further 
need can men have of a Word of God, when their 
salvation does not depend upon their willing or 
running, but solely upon God's decision ? And if 
a revelation is not needed under these appalling 
circumstances, pastors and teachers, and the 
Church, and Divine ordinances, &c, are likewise 
not needed, and Calvinism — such is its evil and 
destructive tendency, carried out to its ultimate 
legitimate results, thus terminates in the aboli- 
tion or nullification of the entire Christian scheme 
of salvation ! 

The election to eternal life, is — we are told, 
unconditional, and consequently carried out in- 
dependently of all human volition or agency. 

4* 



42 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

If this statement could be credited as true, it 
would follow as a necessary result, that God is 
not the kind and just father of the human race, 
for which he is usually taken, but rather an un- 
feeling and cruel despot, who rules over his off- 
spring as passion or caprice dictates. Distin- 
guished by so repellent and unlovely a character, 
God — it is clear, could no longer be deemed 
worthy either of respect or reverence among his 
disappointed and unhappy children, and they 
would, dreadful thought, thenceforth live with- 
out God and without hope. Such is the baneful 
issue, which really underlies the doctrine of elec- 
tion, traced to its ultimate sequence. A fact in 
itself sufficient to prove it false, and forever to 
brand it with infamy ! 

By this time it must be abundantly evident to 
the intelligent reader, that the doctrine of elec- 
tion largely and most grievously affects the peace 
and happiness of mankind, and that it ought, 
therefore, if for no other reason, to be promptly 
rejected, and no longer suffered to disfigure and 
pollute the symbols of the Christian's faith. 
Thus — let us but bear in mind that some people 
— according to the purport of this creed, are 
elected to everlasting life, and others singled out 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 43 

for everlasting misery, but that no certain mark 
is set upon the one or the other, clearly and un- 
doubtedly setting forth who will be saved or 
who will be damned. Is such total want of un- 
doubted discrimination not eminently well suited, 
to fill the human mind with profound doubt and 
perplexity, and, consequently, make it supremely 
and permanently unhappy ? For if I am saved, 
I know it not, and though my lot may be cast 
among the elect, yet not being unequivocally as- 
sured of the fact, I cannot refrain from often and 
tremblingly thinking that I may have my destiny 
assigned among the lost ! Can anything be more 
saddening, more dreadful, than such alarming 
uncertainty? Such a state of indecision; of 
hopeless groping in the dark; of ever seeking 
and never finding, is essentially hell, and, hence, 
in this life at least, the fate of either the elect or 
the rejected, is not clearly defined, and both the 
one and the other must be, therefore, more or 
less the inevitable victims of manifold and inef- 
fable unhappiness ! 

What is worse than all in this hateful doctrine 
of election, is that man cannot do anything to 
make sure of his acceptance : it is, alas, uncon- 
ditional, as we have seen ; all free-agency is ab- 



44 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

solutely ignored in its attainment; and man is 
treated as if lie had no interest in the issue : as 
if he was a mere machine, responsive to a force 
over which he has no control, and a destiny about 
which he is not consulted ! He is, hence, irre- 
sponsible : his fate is decided, and let him do 
what he will, it is all the same ; for he is all that 
he can be — saved or damned ! Such, 0, horror, 
is the Calvinism of the doctrine of election, and 
such are its blighting, unavoidable tendencies to 
plunge in utter unhappiness a great part of the 
human race. Such a creed like this, cannot — it 
is evident, be of God, and, as I do not believe in 
the existence of a Devil, it must be the monster- 
offspring either of a morbid or a depraved intel- 
lect ! Away, then, with this crass and wicked 
doctrine, called election, and let us listen to the 
better creed the poet thus sings : 

" Seek virtue; and, of that possess'd, 
To Providence resign the rest." — Gay. 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 45 



CHAPTER IV. 

In which the Causes are indicated why Marriages often 
produce Unhappiness. 

Connubial or, in other words, wedded life, is 
evidently designed by the Creator to be a source 
of enjoyment to the parties, and to prove at once 
a blessing and an honor to them. This important 
end — I am pleased to say, is still often attained, 
while in very numerous instances, it is frustrated, 
when marriage — of course, terminates in a state 
of unhappiness, more or less marked and pain- 
ful. In a relation of life, which is both so tender 
and so sacred, it seems proper to investigate the 
causes which give rise to so adverse and deplor- 
able a result, and to point out such means as may 
be deemed best calculated to avoid them. 

First, when we have resolved to enter into the 
matrimonial relation, we should well ponder the 
important step which we are about to take ; for 
the relation — according to the original intent, is 



46 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

meant to be permanently binding, unless the 
death of one of the parties dissolves the connec- 
tion. Besides, the relation is emphatically sacred : 
consecrated to a special end, and designed to be 
strictly confined to the contracting parties, with 
the exclusion of all others. Such being the case, 
it would evidently be very wrong in setting out 
to select a companion in married life, to be con- 
trolled in the choice of so weighty a matter, by 
such sordid motives, for example, as the acquisi- 
tion of riches. Riches are indeed not to be 
despised if they come in our way incidentally ; 
for they may be made the means of a great deal 
of good, both in a secular and spiritual point of 
view. But to make them a chief object in the 
consummation of matrimony, would be not only 
exceedingly imprudent, but, besides, running a 
great risk, as — according to the familiar proverb, 
" Riches often take to themselves wings and fly 
away/' 

Second, beauty has no better claim than riches 
to control the decision in the choice of a husband 
or a wife. It is — like riches, or any other earthly 
possession, a gift of the Creator, and not to feel 
attracted by its charms, or influenced by its 
worth, would argue great want of a proper ses- 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 47 

thetic taste. But estimable as it undoubtedly is, 
it must give way to more durable and serviceable 
qualities, if these cannot be found in happy 
union with it. Beauty soon fades, and is no 
more entitled to determine the issue of matrimo- 
nial preferences than mere worldly affluence. 
An oversight in this regard is, therefore, neces- 
sarily productive of more or less decided unhap- 
piness, as it sets out from false principles, at the 
sacrifice of more solid and reliable advantages. — 
The foregoing paragraphs — it may be remarked, 
are intended mainly as prefatory, and will ac- 
cordingly be here succeeded by such disquisitions 
upon the subject, as will place in a proper light, 
the distracting and unhappy effects of faulty or 
ill-assorted marriages. 

First, there may be a good wife but a bad hus- 
band, when the consequence will be found to be 
— as may readily be supposed, unhappiness in the 
family. A good wife is one that is not only of 
an affectionate disposition, but of circumspect 
and diligent habits; that omits not to do her 
part in the proper management and maintenance 
of the family ; that is, in short, a helper in the 
affairs and needs of her household. She is, ac- 
cordingly, not an idle, gadding, but an industri- 



48 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

ous, frugal woman ; a woman that keeps every- 
thing neatly and tidily around her, or makes it 
her duty to see that it is thus kept ; that has a 
place for everything, and a particular time in 
which to observe her routine of duties; that is — 
and this is not the least of her many virtues, 
good tempered, and that can above all, boast the 
possession and the charm of good common sense. 
Here are united, I conceive, the essential ele- 
ments — as far as the wife is concerned, of a well- 
regulated and happy conjugal life, but all this 
fair and pleasing side of the family portrait, is 
no security against the pangs and miseries of 
unhappiness, if the husband is recreant to his 
vows, and remiss to his duties; if he scolds 
instead of using kind words, or is harsh and 
despotic in his manners, instead of being con- 
siderate and governed in his conduct only by the 
dictates of reason; if he is disorderly in his 
habits; an idler; a spendthrift; in short, if he 
is deficient in all, or most, of the leading traits, 
which constitute a good husband, great and 
grievous must be the unhappiness, w T hich he 
brings into the family, of which he is the osten- 
sible head, but of which he is emphatically the 
plague and the disgrace ! 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 49 

Second, the case in the preceding paragraph, 
may be reversed, and the husband may be con- 
sidered as good and faithful in all his marital re- 
lations, while the wife is sadly deficient or short- 
coming in her connubial duties. — Strange as it 
may seem, many women at the present day, do 
not expect to take an active industrial or even 
supervisional part, in the conduct of a family : 
they professedly marry to be supported ; to have 
good times ; to be ladies ! Decked in their 
trinkets, and assuming the airs of refinement, 
they spend most of their time in lazy listlessness, 
unconscious of their arduous and solemn respon- 
sibilities, and intent only in devising means to 
indulge their silly taste for dress, or fondness for 
frivolous amusements, utterly regardless of the 
comforts, the wishes, or the finances of their 
neglected and grossly abused husbands. Such 
sad and ridiculous specimens of wives, it is clear, 
are, by no means, calculated to make married 
life anything but an extremely unenviable and 
unhappy life; for let the husband of a woman 
of this class, labor and care for his family ever 
so assiduously and wisely ; let him be ever so 
well suited to make a sensible woman happy, and 
a household — conducted on ordinary principles 



50 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

of prudence and wise methods, prosperous and 
respectable, all his painstaking; all his self- 
denials; and all his untiring perseverance in 
the attempt to counteract the evils, which a 
person — so ill-adapted to the weighty and exalted 
duties of a Christian wife, has brought into his 
domicile, and his efforts, alas, will be all in vain ! 
I will only add, that the following apothegm of 
the "Proverbs of Solomon," is well worthy of 
serious attention of such as are matrimonially 
inclined: "Every wise woman," thus says the 
writer, " buildeth her house : but the foolish 
plucketh it down." 

Third, when it happens : which is only too 
often the case to admit of doubt, that the connu- 
bial life of either the husband or the wife, is 
bad, and consequently inimical to the evident 
ends and duties of married life, the proper bring- 
ing-up of their children is in many, perhaps 
most cases, clearly impracticable; for what — 
under such untoward circumstances, the one 
parent builds up, the other pulls down, and the 
unfortunate offspring, alternately impelled in op- 
posite directions, being thus filled with doubt, 
becomes confused, then indifferent, and at length 
— not unlikely, even hardened : could they always 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 5 J 

properly discriminate between right and wrong, 
the result might not necessarily be so disastrous, 
but such sagacity in most instances, is not to be 
expected. To ensure a judicious and wholesome 
moral training, and raise up good children, who 
only can make useful citizens, both parents must 
labor, and watch, and pray, in happy concert, in 
bringing about so great and auspicious an event. 
But such united effort, fruitful in most salutary 
and lasting impressions upon the minds of the 
young, is possible only when both parties are 
true to their high and sacred destinj^, and, ac- 
cordingly, faithfully and zealously devoted to 
each other, and to those intrusted to their care. 
It is, hence, evident that much of the unhappi- 
ness in the world, is owing to a want of suitable 
and prompt co-operation of the parents in the 
education of their children, and that both bad 
husbands and bad wives, already burdened with 
the guilt of matrimonial shortcomings, will, be- 
sides, have much to answer for at the tribunal 
of God — to say nothing of their amenability to 
society in such case, for the neglect of their duty 
toward their children : such result beino; but the 
natural reflex action of their unfaithfulness in the 
hallowed family relation ! 



52 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

Fourth, the bad and disreputable conduct of 
many married persons, giving rise to so much 
unhappiness among themselves and their families, 
has a direct tendency to make a very unfavora- 
ble impression upon the minds of numerous per- 
sons in respect to married life, leading them not 
only to contemplate it with, distrust, but even 
with decided dread and aversion. Many worthy 
men and women, who would fill the relation of 
husbands and wives in an honorable and praise- 
worthy manner, are thus discouraged from risk- 
ing themselves into a position, which appears to 
them to be so difficult to maintain, and which, 
so often, ends in disappointment and disgrace. 
Their conclusions are often made — no doubt, with- 
out due reflection, as well as not always without a 
little exaggeration ; yet upon the whole, they have 
ample cause to be wary and deliberate; for there 
is evidently marked danger in taking a false step 
in this direction, as the history of multitudes of 
families, both in ancient and modern times, only 
too sorrowfully demonstrates to be questioned in 
this place. Such being the case, marriage is often 
deferred till a late period in life, or altogether 
dispensed with. The consequence is that celi- 
bacy is frequent, and the improper or sinful in- 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 53 

diligence of the sexual instinct, alarmingly com- 
mon : for all these adverse and baneful issues of 
life, bad, godless husbands and wives — as the 
undoubted efficient cause, are — I repeat it, most 
gravely responsible. Whence it may be again 
inferred, how destructive and eminently sad is 
their wicked and scandalous example. 

Fifth, in determining the choice of a husband 
or wife, virtue and godliness only — as being par- 
amount to all other considerations, should guide 
our decision and justify our judgment. For such 
persons only as are thus pre-eminently qualified, 
are worthy to stand in the important relation of 
husband and wife, inasmuch as they only are com- 
petent properly to appreciate and successfully to 
discharge the duties or feel the obligations of 
married life. But what are we to understand by 
the qualities of the persons, who are here distin- 
guished by the laudable and precious epithets vir- 
tuous and godly f Answering the question, Web- 
ster writes that virtuous means "morally good; 
acting in conformity to the moral law," &c. As 
to godliness, it signifies, according to the same 
high authority, "Piety; belief in God, and rev- 
erence for his character and laws/' &c. These 

are the lovely and transcendent attributes which 

5* 



54 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

should — as far as it is possible, characterize and 
ennoble the matrimonial relation ; for marriage 
is eminently a holy institution, and — as the sa- 
cred writer says, " Honorable in all:" Hence it 
is clear that should we be ever so poor and needy, 
if we possess virtue and godliness : emphatically 
the two pillars of a well-ordered life, to lean 
against them, we shall still be able to bear up in 
our various afflictions and trials, however severe 
or protracted they may be, whereas if w^e lack 
these great and essential blessings, our connubial 
life will be a decided failure, and our household 
a gloomy scene of discord and unhappiness. 

Sixth and lastly, I shall — however startling the 
announcement may be, briefly advocate the pro- 
priety : in certain cases, of dissolving the mar- 
riage-tie. In Matthew v. 32, and xix. 9, divorce 
is allowed in the single case of adultery : called 
fornication there, while in Matthew xix. 8, and 
Mark x. 9, the positive command stands out in 
bold relief that " what God hath joined together, 
let not man put asunder." I agree entirely with 
the prohibition contained in the last passage, in- 
asmuch as what God has " joined together," will 
need no sundering, but only that, I conceive, 
which he has not joined together. The disposi- 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 55 

tions and habits of married people are often so 
exceedingly discordant and inimical , that it is 
impossible for them to live together except under 
circumstances of extreme unhappiness. Divorce, 
therefore, seems proper not only in case of adul- 
tery, but also in respect to an irreconcilable di- 
versity of principles and modes of life, ever 
breeding contention, ill-will, and discontentment. 
If anything is clear in human destiny, it is this, 
that the marriage-state, should be a state of peace 
and mutual good-will among the parties, and not 
a state of distraction and hatred. Not the latter, 
only the former, can attain its legitimate and 
lofty ends. Hence, I hold that it is best to put 
asunder what God has not put together ; for not 
having been put together by him, it ought not to 
have been put together at all, as such a godless 
union can only be an unholy and unhappy one ! 



56 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY \ 






CHAPTER V. 

Among the Many Causes of our Unhappiness, Sectarianism is 
not the Least. 

Sectarianism may be concisely defined as the 
division of the Christian Church into different 
denominations, all having something peculiar 
both in their creeds and in their rituals. It is 
eminently natural that mankind should differ 
from each other in their religious opinions, and 
just that they should be allowed to give expres- 
sion to them ; but it is by no means proper, that 
they should become sectarian to be true to their 
convictions, or to enlist others in their cause. St. 
Paul entirely coincides with this view of the sub- 
ject, when he sharply rebukes the evil sectarian 
spirit, which had begun to develop itself in the 
Corinthian church, in which every one—beside 
professing his adhesion to Christ, said : " I am 
of Paul ; and I of Apollos ; and I of Cephas," 
and asks : " Is Christ divided ? was Paul crucified 



WHAT MAKES IS UNHAPPY? 57 

for you ? or were you baptized in the name of 
Paul':*' Thus strongly disapproving of sectari- 
anism, and emphatically condemning its spirit! 

With the exception of the incipient schism, 
noticed above, the primitive Church was mod- 
estly content to be simply Christian^ and to know 
no other article of faith but belief in Christ. 
Therefore the Apostles, and their fellow-laborers, 
though they occupied various fields of Christian 
activity, yet all conspired toward a common cen- 
tre, mutually striving to obey and glorify a com- 
mon Lord: and, hence, everywhere under the 
benign influence of this praiseworthy evangeli- 
cal spirit, all was unity, harmony, and peace. 
Under such normal and, consequently auspicious 
working of the Church, there was, of course, no 
room, or cause for unhappiness; for its wise teach- 
ings were at once wholesome, and its methods 
reasonable. That Christendom appears, at pres- 
ent, under less favorable aspects : being a source 
of much unhappiness, no other reason can be as- 
signed that will be so likely satisfactorily to ex- 
plain the cause of it, as the prevalence of blind 
and unhallowed sectarianism : the root of much 
bickering and other manifold evils, debasing its 
spirit, and frustrating its design. 



58 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

Some people think that sectarianism is a use- 
ful institution, tending to excite rivalry among 
the different denominations, and to inspire them 
with greater zeal and activity in their profession, 
than would otherwise be the case. But this is, 
I conceive, to " do evil," — as the Apostle writes, 
" that good may come" : a morality whose damna- 
tion, he assures us, " Is just." Having said thus 
much prefatorily, I shall proceed to lay before 
the reader some examples of unhappiness, which 
mars the peace of society, and which may be 
justly considered as unmistakably due to the 
anti-Christian and baneful influence of sectari- 
anism. 

First, sectarianism is emphatically separatism, 
and, therefore, from its very nature and aim, un- 
sociable and repellent. The house of worship of 
each sect, is peculiar and distinct from all other 
houses of worship, and the creeds and modes of 
worship of each, are in marked discord with those 
of the other. It is, hence, a pitiful, a sickening 
sight, to see on a Sunday or other prominent 
church-going occasions, worshipers rushing past 
each other, their faces bent toward almost every 
point of the compass, to find their Christ, or 
worship their God ! Each one of these sectaries 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 59 

is sure that he has something more excellent or 
more orthodox; something of greater saving 
efficacy, or that inspires a more certain as well 
as a more evangelical hope, than the other. 
Some of these misbelievers go a long way to get 
to their house of God, that might be accommo- 
dated as well or better nearer at home; and 
others — owing to the distances which they would 
have to go, to assert their Shibboleth, or glorify 
their sect, will go but seldom or not at all, espe- 
cially in inclement weather, in feeble health, or 
in old age. 

Besides, the boast of sectaries of their respec- 
tive superiority is often of so evidently trivial or 
repulsive a character, that it is difficult not to 
find it to be either ludicrous or repulsive. Thus, 
an unbroken succession in the episcopacy, is not 
only deemed an inestimable, but an eminently 
unexceptionably choice prerogative, in the Church 
of England; in the Roman Catholic Church, the 
doctrine of transubstantiation, is held to be the 
very bulwark of a true and only saving Chris- 
tianity ; whereas that of the real presence in the 
Lutheran Church, claims to be a specimen of 
what is most excellent and clever in undoubted 
orthodoxy. Again, the Presbyterian, or Augus- 



60 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY f 

tinian belief in foreordination : held up as the 
only possible or true solution of the dogma of the 
absolute sovereignty of God, is gloried in as the 
quintessence of high theological attainment, 
while the close-communionism of a branch of 
the Baptist Church, is insisted upon as a neces- 
sary condition of true religion, and though a lit- 
tle too exclusive to be a very eligible element in 
a scheme of universal salvation, it may, proba- 
bly, presume to justify its narrowness of view, 
by pointing to Matthew vii. 14, where we read 
that " strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, 
which leadeth unto life," &c. 

The foregoing instances of a contracted and 
overweening spirit, may be considered as a fair 
sample of the general tendency and character of 
sectarianism ; and, hence, though we should pass 
under review every sect or religious denomina- 
tion in Christendom, we would find among all 
similar ridiculous and vain pretensions staring us 
in the face, and loudly attest the grievous apos- 
tasy of sectarianism from the pure and unpre- 
tending prineiples of the Gospel ! How can 
sectaries thus divided and contradistinguished; 
thus in crass and evident antithesis toward each 
other, be animated by the lofty sentiments of a 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? CA 

genuine Christian brother-hood? or justify their 
astounding dereliction from the clearly untram- 
meling principles of the Gospel ? It is simply 
impossible. This being the case, a want of sin- 
cere attachment, unfeigned love, and good will, 
such as one disciple of Christ should cherish for 
another, must be largely prevalent in the mani- 
festations of sectarian life, resting as a blight 
upon the souls of its deluded and misguided fol- 
lowers, and, consequently, diffuse more or less, 
the pernicious seeds of misgiving, jealousy, and 
unhappiness, within the ample sphere of its sin- 
ister and baleful influence. 

Second, the primitive Christians had no creed 
except the Gospel, wdiich was deemed — it is to 
be taken for granted, to be quite sufficient to 
direct them aright in their religious convictions 
and practices : for what is called the Apostles' 
creed, is of later origin, and the gradual out- 
growth of centuries. Every one then, who 
w 7 ished to become a Christian, or who — being 
already in Church-connection, sought for light 
to guide him, or authority to solve his doubts, 
was promptly referred to the teachings set forth 
in the Gospel, the common creed, as well as the 
universally admitted standard of orthodoxy, of the 



62 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

infant Church. After its illustrious Founder had 
terminated his Divine mission, and he could no 
longer be personally appealed to, in such matters, 
the Apostles propagated the religion of the 
Gospel, as they had been taught to understand it 
by the Master, and the churches, which they 
planted in different places, were invariably taught 
to look upon the Gospel as the Alpha and Omega, 
in all things appertaining to their salvation 
through Jesus Christ. This being incontrovert- 
ible, why should not the Gospel now be sufficient 
to teach and govern mankind in the way of ever- 
lasting life, if it was once infallibly sufficient for 
this purpose ? Has its power perhaps decayed ? 
or its redeeming efficacy been blunted ? If not, 
then why will it not suffice without the addition 
and incumbrance of adventitious creeds, often 
only the absurd and stupid productions of igno- 
rant or interested churchmen ? How dare osten- 
sibly Christian teachers to adulterate or virtually 
supplant, the religion of Christ, by their spurious 
and pernicious speculations ? " For" — as St. 
Paul no less aptly than pointedly declares, " other 
foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which 
is Jesus Christ." How happy, how transcendently 
happy, should we all be, if this great and para- 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 63 

mount truth was carefully and prayerfully laid to 
heart, and we should thus be forever freed from 
the influence of the deadly Upas-tree of sectari- 
anism ! 

Third, every person, Christian or non-Chris- 
tian — in the early days of the Church, having 
unobstructed access to Gospel-teaching — as has 
been stated : for that was the only evangelical 
creed, he was consequently treated as a free- 
agent, possessing adult-capacity, and, of course, 
as one capable of personal, independent research, 
entitled, consequently, to the undisputed and 
inalienable indulgence of his private opinions. 
It seems in those unsophisticated and single- 
minded times, the idea never occurred to any 
one, that it was dangerous or improper for him 
to do so, as it might possibly lead him astray, or 
give him too much self-assurance, and thus 
imperil his salvation. No; on the contrary, it 
was deemed far better that he should act an 
independent and manly part, in his important 
capacity of a Christian, than — like a child, 
blindly follow the leading-strings of mother- 
Church ! The popular proverb, that " experience 
makes perfect," is eminently true too of a re- 
ligious education. Theoretically, Protestantism 



64 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

perfectly agrees with these sentiments, but in 
practice, it flatly ignores and condemns the use 
of private judgment as a religious test, as its 
history in all countries fully proves.* 

* The following notice upon this subject, by a writer in 
" Chambers's Encyclopaedia," is as interesting as it is in- 
structive. Speaking of Protestantism as it first revealed 
itself, and how it gradually degenerated and reverted to 
Koman Catholicism, he thus proceeds to observe, "That" — 
according to its original principles, " the authority of the 
Bible is supreme, and above that of councils and bishops, and 
that the Bible is not to be interpreted and used according to 
tradition or use and wont, but to be explained by means of 
itself — its own language and connection. As this doctrine, 
that the Bible, explained itself independently of all external 
tradition, is the sole authority in all matters of faith and dis- 
cipline, is really the foundation-stone of the Keformation, the 
term Protestant was extended from those who signed the 
Speier protest ; to all who embraced the fundamental prin- 
ciple involved in it ; and thus Protestant churches became 
synonymous with Reformed. The essence of Protestantism, 
therefore, does not consist in holding any special system of 
doctrines and discipline, but in the source from which, and 
the way in which, it proposes to seek for the truth in all 
matters of faith and practice ; and thus a church might, in 
the progress of research, see reason to depart from special points 
of its hitherto received creed, without thereby ceasing to be 
Protestant. The Symbols or Confessions of the Protestant 
churches were not intended as rules of faith for all time, but 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 65 

Fourth, in the halcyon days of apostolic times, 
congregations, without denominational distinc- 
tions, or any idea of the heresy : since developed 
as a permanent institution, and known as secta- 
rianism, were scattered over different parts of 
the Roman Empire, but they were all emphati- 
cally Christian organizations, or at least aimed 
solely to be such, both in doctrine and in practice. 
All the followers of Christ in a certain neighbor- 
hood or locality, if they wished to hear the 
Gospel preached and to join in the solemnities 

as expressions of what was then believed to be the sense of 
Scripture. When, at a later time, it was sought to erect them 
into unchangeable standards of true doctrine, this was a re- 
nunciation of the first principle of Protestantism, and are- 
turn to the Catholic principle ; for, in making the sense put 
upon Scripture by the Keformers, the standard of truth, all 
further investigation of Scripture is arrested, the authority 
of the Eeformers is set above that of the Bible, and a new 
tradition of dogmas and interpretation is created, which 
differs from the Catholic tradition only in beginning with 
Luther and Calvin, instead of with the apostolic fathers/' 

I will only add that — as may be verified by this quotation, 
the principles from which the Keformers started, were liberal 
and evangelical, but that — overshadowed by a sinister theology 
of the Dark Ages, they gradually degenerated into narrow- 
minded and unevangelical sectarianism, whose dire watchword 
is inertia, not progress ! 



66 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

of public worship, went to the same place of 
meeting or house of God : the invitation : " Ho, 
every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters/ 5 
was generously extended to all without distinc- 
tion of person, or regard to shades of faith, and 
was, therefore, expected to be responded to by 
all indiscriminately. As was one congregation 
thus constituted at that time, so were all then 
similarly constituted, and it must have been a 
pretty, nay, a most charming sight, well calcu- 
lated to make glad the heart and to banish from 
the minds of Christians all thoughts of unhappi- 
ness, more or less inevitably incident to sectarian 
modes of observing divine worship. The beggar 
and the prince; the learned and the ignorant, 
might alike come, and worship as God should 
give them grace, or as their honest convictions 
might dictate. Why cannot congregations now 
be constituted after this simple pure type of 
church-organization, which is so eminently in 
accord with the principles of common sense as 
well as the evidently democratic spirit of the New 
Testament, instead of being formed after the 
present selfish, isolating, and unsociable sectarian 
exclusiveness, so fertile in the heart-burning and 
grievances to which it will infallibly give rise ? 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 67 

But would not people, thus left chiefly to their 
own free-agency, or private judgment, without a 
definite and fixed creed, often be likely to enter- 
tain very crude and even heterodox opinions ? It 
is very possible I think that at least some would, 
but they would — in such case, do only what is 
done daily by multitudes under the different de- 
nominational sect-teaching ! Let, I say, every 
Christian stand face to face with his God, and 
let no man dare " to judge another man's ser- 
vant," for " to his own master he standeth or 
falleth!" 



68 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 



CHAPTEE VI. 

In which will be shown the Sad Part which Drunkenness 
plays in our Unhappiness. 

Nothing, perhaps, is more common than to find 
mankind to differ in their opinions about the 
light in which strong, or spirituous drink, is to be 
viewed. Thus, some think it ought not to be 
used at all, and their maxim is, " Touch not, taste 
not, handle not," while others allow its use, but 
restrict it exclusively to medicinal purposes. 
Again, a third class of persons, differing from 
both the others, insist that a moderate, that is, a 
judicious and, consequently, wholesome use of it, 
is neither unreasonable nor can it be injurious. 
Those who admit its employment as a medicine, 
confine it to actual disease, whereas, it is clear, 
that it may be very properly and wisely resorted 
to as a prophylactic or preventive of disease ! The 
plain truth of the matter is, that whenever strong 
drink is used, it should be used only medicinally, 
or — in other words, for purposes of health, either 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 69 

to restore or to preserve it, Except for this end, 
its use ought to be carefully avoided, as, in such 
case, it would be decidedly injurious, and, con- 
sequently, a sinful misapplication of it. 

There is, I conceive, no more reason that total 
abstinence should be observed in respect to strong 
drink, than in respect to the enjoyment of food 
or the indulgence of ^the sexual instinct. Food 
is an absolute necessary of life, yet it is often 
used to excess, and is, therefore, not a good but 
an injury. Notwithstanding this is the fact, no 
person of sound mind — unless he designs self- 
destruction, thinks of dispensing with its use. 
It would, I think all reasonable people will admit, 
argue very little good sense in any one to refrain 
from eating as much as a healthy appetite craves, 
because many persons indulge a morbid appetite, 
and. hence minister to gluttony; thus making 
brutes of themselves, and, besides, waste as well 
as abuse, a precious gift of the Creator. 

As to the sexual instinct, to which reference 
has been made, and which — according to Divine 
appointment, plays so important a part in the 
propagation of the human race, who is there 
insane enough to interdict its legitimate use, 
merely because its licentious indulgence in the 



70 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

commission of the alarmingly prevalent crimes 
of fornication, adultery, &c, is numerous as " the 
sand of the sea ?" Hence it is clear, that any 
drink or beverage, which is healthful when it is 
properly used, and which — being thus used, is, of 
course, adapted to attain the ends for which the 
Creator has intended it, is to be ranked among 
the indisputable gifts, which are designed for the 
use and happiness of mankind. 

In the advancement of the preceding facts, I 
am far from attempting to plead the cause of the 
drunkard : he does not use, but abuse, the strong 
drink in which he indulges, and, of course, does 
himself great and lasting injury as well as set a 
bad and ruinous example for others. Hence, 
though I shall point out the vice of drunkenness 
from different points of view, and shall by no 
means pass lightly over its many and grave 
evils ; yet I will not lose sight of the fact that, 
no doubt, many a drunkard can plead some ex- 
tenuation at the bar of his Maker, for his wicked 
and disgraceful life, and that it behooves us : 
none being without sin, kindly and wisely to 
temper justice with mercy. Thus, some per- 
sons, it seems, have a natural, inborn propensity 
toward strong drink: Socrates affords such an 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 71 

instance, and he rose superior to it, but all men 
are not Socrateses ! 

First, drunkenness often leads to the commis- 
sion of crime. — Alcoholic, or spirituous liquor, 
has a tendency when it is used to excess, to act 
as a powerful stimulant, which — according to 
Webster, " Produces an increase of vital energy 
and strength of action in the heart and arteries," 
while, I add, it has a tendency to impair the 
judgment, and unduly to excite the sensuous 
passions. Under these circumstances, evidently 
fraught with great danger to a healthful state of 
morals, the victim of strong drink often becomes 
very irritable ; feels strong, and grows pugna- 
cious, when perhaps an old grudge suddenly re- 
vives, or, inflamed with anger at a recent real or 
supposed insult, and — as incapable of cool, delib- 
erate reflection as he is blindly indifferent to 
consequences, he brutally maims, disables, or: 
transported by an ungovernable rage, imbrues 
his hands in the blood of a fellow-being ; is tried, 
imprisoned, banished, or hung ! 

Such is one of the sad, disgraceful episodes in 
the debasing, ill-spent life of the drunkard. The 
great and grievous amount of unhappiness, which 
a life leading to such sad and fearful issues, must 



72 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

infallibly cause, cannot but render extremely 
miserable, not only the infatuated votary of 
Bacchus, when he at length awakes to a just 
sense of his degradation and guilt, but also those 
whose ties of consanguinity bring them in close 
sympathy with him. For his fall — as that of one 
near to them, must, of course, affect them more 
or less painfully as well as abidingly : the dread, 
dismal thought of it, piercing like a dagger, their 
stricken souls, ever sorrowing and mourning over 
his sinister and dire fate : ah, he has indeed made 
desolate and wretched their hearts — once so 
happy ; their homes — once so pleasant and cheer- 
ful ! Evils of a character so appalling : following 
in the path of the drunkard's career, should — it 
seems, suggest a timely and solemn warning 
against an indulgence which — carried to excess, 
its consequences are both so eminently disastrous 
and lamentable. 

Second, one of the serious charges, which may 
be justly preferred against the drunkard, is that 
he cannot be either a fit husband or a good father. 
His absence from home is frequent, generally 
prolonged, while his return is irregular, and 
when it takes place, what first announces his 
presence, is his offensive alcoholic breath. His 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? .73 

greeting is a scowl, abuse, now and then, per- 
haps, an idiotic smile. O, how the poor wife's 
heart must bleed, if, indeed, she is a good and 
true woman, under such coarse, rude treatment, 
suited, alas, not to endear, but to repel, connubial 
affection ! His example as a father, must be in 
an eminent degree pernicious, often inducing 
imitation of his bacchanalian vices, and hence 
multiplying unhappiness in the family, whose 
head : unworthy as he is, he still claims to be. 
Being in a besotted state from the effects of 
inebriate habits, it is not likely that he thinks 
much of his children's education, and they ac- 
cordingly, in most cases, grow up in ignorance 
as well as without proper moral training. That, 
finally, he is a " poor provider," for the temporal 
wants of his household, is — rare cases perhaps 
excepted, to be taken for granted. 

Speaking of the effects of drunkenness on 
home-life, in his book, entitled " Total Absti- 
nence/' &c, Doctor Hargreaves says : " Another 
direful aspect of strong drink is its results upon 
Home Life. Here it assaults the fountain head 
of our social and national character, and the 
scenes of our greatest, earthly joys. Affection 
may build up a home, spread around it the love- 



74 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

liest forms the human eye can rest upon, or re- 
finement and taste desire ; fill every apartment 
with all that can make home agreeable ; if in- 
temperance enters, it destroys the happiness of 
all within its threshold, and banishes every hope 
and joy. 

" Vast numbers of our people appear almost 
destitute of the comforts and happiness of home, 
around which should cluster the happiest and 
the most joyous associations of childhood, and 
the most hallowed recollections of youth. In 
numerous cases their homes are entirely the re- 
verse of this ; intemperance has filled them with 
poverty and misery. Of all abodes, the drunk- 
ard's home is the most deplorable. It is not 
only associated with cold, hunger, rags, tears aud 
woe, but frequently with crime, physical and 
mental disease, and death under its most appall- 
ing circumstances. Children in such homes, 
find little to love, to cherish or to recall with 
pleasing recollections. Thousands of such homes 
exist in our large cities. These homes are the 
training schools of vagrancy, vice and crime, for 
which society has to provide the means of sup- 
port," &c. 

Third, some of the causes, leading to poverty 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 75 

in the drunkard's sad career, are patent to com- 
mon observation, as well as attested by undoubted 
statistical tables. The drunkard, I may accord- 
ingly remark, is characteristically distinguished 
for an idle, spendthrift-life, and, hence, instead 
of wisely accumulating what is needful and 
proper in our destination, he sinfully wastes such 
resources as may be still left to him. Whence it 
necessarily follows that he is often reduced to 
great want, ay, squalid misery, thus becoming, of 
course, a burden to the community, and a curse 
to himself! In view of such pernicious results, 
arising from inebriate habits, the solemn truth 
cannot, therefore, be too early or too sedulously 
inculcated, that worldly possessions are a heritage 
derived from God, though we should acquire 
them indirectly, and — according to Scripture, 
" In the sw^eat of our faces, " and that a strict ac- 
count will have to be given to him for the man- 
ner in which we use them, as also of the extent 
to which we have — well or ill, employed our par- 
amount personal gift of free-agency. No one, it 
is clear, has a right to misapply his God-given 
blessings : they are, I need hardly say, bestowed 
upon us only for tvise and good purposes; for the 
dissemination of virtuous principles : the basis of 



76 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

true happiness, and, consequently, indirectly, for 
the diminution of vice and misery. 

The observations in the last paragraph, are 
abundantly verified as well as aptly illustrated by 
statistical detail, in the following communication 
by the able writer above quoted : " The Citizens' 
Association of Pennsylvania," he states, " char- 
tered by the Legislature to report on our depend- 
ent and criminal population, reporting to that 
body, February, 1868, said : ' It will not be 
doubted that two-thirds of the pauperism and 
crime are justly attributed to intemperance; and 
it is stated by authorities that one-third of the 
dependent classes, as insane, feeble-minded, &c, 
are to be traced to the same cause. 5 In that year 
14,988 were in poor-houses, or one in 246 of 
the population, whose cost of maintenance was 
$1,597,720, or $2.67 for each voter in the State. 
The out-door relief cost $190,376.56, or 32 cents 
for each voter. In addition, there were about 
361,000 vagrants, who were furnished with meals, 
at an estimated expense of $54,150, or nine cents 
to each voter. There was also 119,000 nights' 
lodgings furnished to traveling poor, which added 
to the 46,250 nights' lodgings furnished to va- 
grants in the station-houses of Philadelphia, gives 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 77 

a total of 165,346 nights 5 lodgings. Three- 
fourths of this vagrancy is directly traceable as 
the result of strong drink/ 5 &c. 

Fourth, drunkenness, I may observe in the 
next place, has a pernicious influence upon the 
normal condition of offspring. For alcoholic 
drinks long continued and used in excess, predis- 
pose to various very serious kinds of mental and 
physical diseases ; as B right's disease of the kid- 
neys ; delirium tremens ; softening of the brain ; 
insanity ; apoplexy ; paralysis ; cirrhosis of the 
liver; dropsy; &c. There is no doubt, that a 
person suffering from one or more of these bac- 
chanalian afflictions, and whose constitution is 
consequently vitiated, is incapable of performing 
either his bodily or psychical functions in a 
proper, healthy manner, and that the integrity of 
his bein^ having thus become deteriorated, he is 
henceforth incapacitated of producing strictly 
normal offspring. As well, indeed, might we 
presume that a pure stream can issue from a 
turbid fountain, or " a corrupt tree" bring forth 
good fruit, as to believe that a person rendered 
organically diseased, could still give birth to 
well-formed, mentally and physically vigorous, 

fair, and in every sense, perfect children. Opin- 

7* 



78 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

ions, similar to these, I think are entertained by 
physicians generally, who concede that the effects 
of drunkenness are frequently hereditary, or — in 
other words, that the drinking propensity of the 
parent is transmitted to the child, thus proving a 
vitiated origin. But, on this interesting subject, 
I shall once more refer to the instructive teach- 
ing of the author on " Total Abstinence," &c, 
who has made this important subject a specialty. 
An abstract of this salient question, is contained 
in the following remarks : " The results of ex- 
cessive alcoholic indulgences most frequently 
overlooked, because the least plain," writes the 
Doctor, " are the amount of disease, weakness, 
and imbecility transmitted from parents to chil- 
dren. As a rule, children inherit the passions, 
diseases, &c, of their parents, and even when 
the inheritance does not present itself in absolute 
disease, it often appears in defective mental and 
physical organization, and this defect or feeble- 
ness predisposes to intemperance as well as dis- 
ease." Such being the case, it follows that a 
predisposition to strong drink, being transmitted 
from parents to their offspring, the same diseases 
to which it gave rise in the former, will likely 
be developed in the latter ; for the cause being 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 79 

the same, the effect will be, of course, the 
same.* 

Fifth, according to St. Paul, Galatians v. 24, a 
person who is guilty of habitual drunkenness, 
" Shall not inherit the kingdom of God." This 
is plain language, and positive decision. But it 
is far from implying unjust or arbitrary measures 
under Gospel-dispensation, inasmuch as the Apos- 
tle only unequivocally states what is the natural 
consequence of a drunkard's life ; for the king- 
dom of God, or— in other words, Gospel-fellow- 
ship with Christ, is possible only among persons 
of good moral principles, while those of an op- 
posite character, would be entirely out of place 
in the society of the Savior. The German adage 
admirably expresses this salient fact, in the 
phrase, " Gleiches zu Gleichem gesellt sich 
gern," whereas uncongenial dispositions have a 
natural repugnance toward each other. Hence, 
drunkenness, it is evident, is incompatible with 
the privileges of the Gospel, and must, therefore, 
on no account be indulged in ; for being — as we 
have seen inimical to good morals, it must prove 

* According to Dr. Hargreaves, the annual expense for in- 
toxicating drinks in the United States, amounts to 8700,- 
000,000. 



80 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

an inexorable bar to admission into glory. Thus 
we see, that it is temperance which it ever be- 
hooves ns to observe in all things, if we would 
enjoy life, be, in short, happy, or — as Mary 
Chandler no less truly than tersely writes : 

Cl 'Tis to thy rules, Temperance, that we owe 
All pleasures that from health and strength can flow." 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 81 



CHAPTER AT- II. 

Want of Religious Principles tends likewise to make us 
Unhappy. 

There is not a nation or people, with whom 
history has made us acquainted, that has not 
had some kind of religion, either in its incipient 
or more advanced state of development : a salient 
fact, which clearly demonstrates that the religious 
sentiment is radically inherent in human nature, 
and that, hence, wherever man exists, there is a 
more or less distinct recognition of the presence 
of a superior, invisible power, influencing human 
destiny, and, accordingly, the gradual formation 
of a creed as well as the introduction of a cor- 
responding mode of worship. Therefore, a per- 
son who is of so anomalous a character as to 
have no religion, or that ignores responsibility to 
his Maker, seems to be hardly entitled to the 
epithet human, differing — as he does, so essen- 
tially from the healthy, normal type of his fel- 



82 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

low-beings, in being at once indifferent to his 
duty and reckless of his fate ! 

The fact — by no means to be overlooked, that 
the nurture and manifestation of the religious 
element is thus coextensive with the human race, 
shows without a doubt, that the Creator is its 
originator, and that it is his unalterable will, de- 
cidedly and unmistakably expressed in the man- 
ner here pointed out, that religion — qualified by 
the attribute reasonable of course, should consti- 
tute the chief and absorbing concern of our lives, 
and that it is consequently to be a principal means 
as well as an unfailing source of human happi- 
ness. Hence it inevitably follows, that the re- 
verse of such a condition, or, in other words, an 
irreligious, profane life, is in direct antagonism 
to man's true interest, and a main, nay, I think I 
may appropriately and emphatically say, the para- 
mount, cause of all the unhappiness, traceable to 
his own voluntary delinquency. But, the sub- 
ject being viewed in its proper light, why should 
we not be willing resolutely to guard against any 
result in our conduct that might lead to the state 
of misery denominated unhappiness ? Is not the 
possession of " a pure and undefiled religion/ 5 as 
the Apostle calls it, generally acknowledged to 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 83 

be an inestimable good? a superlative blessing? 
Then let us cherish it with ardor, and by its effi- 
ciency make life at once glad and beautiful ! 

It is, alas, too true to be gainsaid, and too 
familiar to excite surprise, that much of the 
religion which is at present in vogue among 
mankind, is erroneous and little attractive to an 
intelligent and reflecting mind. It is often, in- 
deed, little better than a contemptible medley of 
vulgar superstition, containing hardly any of the 
appurtenances of a true soul-ennobling and be- 
atific sentiment. But it must be absolutely so, 
unless the human race should be restrained by 
the constant intervention of a miracle, from fall- 
ing into error, and consequently from entertain- 
ing false and puerile conceptions of his appropri- 
ate normal relation to his Maker. The adoption 
of such a course, however, it is plain, would not 
be educating man through means of his inborn 
and inalienable free-agency, as is now the case, 
but stunting or debasing his faculties, and divert- 
ing their energies from their proper and legiti- 
mate ends. Experience and a maturer reflection 
will here too gradually correct mistakes and over- 
come imperfections, while a larger knowledge 
and a more sensitive consciousness will point out 



84 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

more suitable methods of approaching and ador- 
ing the Deity. Hence we at once see the propri- 
ety of religions toleration, and that the religion 
of any one is worth very little, hardly indeed, 
deserving that venerated name, that does not 
concede the same liberty of opinion to others, 
which it claims for itself. If God had thought 
that an institution like that of the Holy Inquisi- 
tion: emphatically a Satanic invention, was neces- 
sary either for the preservation or the further- 
ance of true religion, he would most undoubtedly 
have introduced it already in the early dawn of 
primeval time of our race, and made sure of one, 
inviolable, and universal faith, among all peoples 
in all times, but he is a Father, and we are his 
children ! 

The person who lives without religious influ- 
ences, or — in other words, fails to be governed by 
religious principles, is emphatically Godless ; that 
is, as the word primarily implies, Godloose, signi- 
fying that he is not tied to God by religious con- 
siderations, and that, therefore, he has no practi- 
cal religious intercourse with him ! * Such de- 



* Thus it is common and proper to say fatherless — having 
no father ; motherless — having no mother ; childless — being 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? g5 

cided lack of intimate relationship with God, and 
of pious emotions towards him ; such evident 
proneness toward the sensuous and the earthly, 
properly constitutes practical atheism : a morbid 
or abnormal state of the mind, of which multi- 
tudes of people are at present suffering, and to 
which they owe much of the unhappiness, which 
so gravely afflicts, and often, alas, undoes them. 
Such strange and sad dereliction of duty might 
plead some excuse, if God was not so good, so 
lovely, and hence, so supremely adorable, as he 
is, but under the circumstances, the atheistic 
conduct of men seems to be as inexplicable as it 
appears to be without alleviation of guilt. 

Religion being therefore both so natural and 
so necessary to the happiness of mankind, there 
has rarely been a time, since civilization dawned 
upon the human race, when religious teachers — 
ostensibly seeking to promote the true dignity 
and welfare of their fellow-beings, were lacking, 
to instruct them in the belief and worship of 
God.* The result — among other good effects 

without children, &e. Why then should Godless not also 
have a privative import among other significations ? 

* God, under the symbolical phases of religion, was once 
universally, and still is largely, worshiped in his separate 



86 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

to which they gave rise, was that houses of wor- 
ship under the different names of fanes, temples, 
pagodas, mosques, churches, &c, were erected; 
sacrifices instituted ; priests ordained; and rit- 
ual ceremonies introduced. People were not to 
live here like the lower animals, thought these 
sensible religious educators, without a solemn, 
public recognition of God in the stated and de- 
vout observance of Divine worship : an organiza- 
tion at once so appropriate and excellent, rightly 
judged these opportune spiritual guides, would 
be the most likely and consequently the best 
means, to elevate the minds of men to a truer 
and more worthy appreciation of their destina- 
tion ; to point out to them the way in which they 
would most certainly find the much needed bless- 
ing of comfort in distress and sorrow; and, 
above all, to make their interest in God a lively 
and an ever-abiding sense of their sacred duty 
toward him, as well as the most efficient means 
of lessening the amount of the various kinds of 
unhappiness, which afflict the human race. Hail, 



attributes, each being represented as a deity. As, therefore, 
the whole must contain all the parts — the Divine attributes, I 
shall designate it emphatically as God. 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 87 

all hail, whatever brings good tidings to the 
unhappy ! 

Though — notwithstanding the great extent of 
religious teaching, which has been devoted to the 
benefit of our race, there is still — as is sadly 
everywhere apparent, much religious unbelief 
and worldliness among mankind, yet the major- 
ity of men are, I doubt not, religious, and though 
their religion is often extremely faulty, and little 
creditable to the human understanding, consid- 
ering that with somewhat more care and dili- 
gence, it might easily be made to appear under a 
less repulsive aspect, it is nevertheless better than 
blank infidelity, or a total and persistent state of 
unbelief; for — glaring as its defects may be, it is 
still calculated, in many respects, to minister to 
the peace and comfort of its votaries, and inspire 
them with unwavering confidence in an overrul- 
ing Providence, whereas a person, severed from 
all religious ties, and hence, in Scripture-phrase, 
" Living without God and without hope in the 
world," is a pitiable object indeed, as he must, 
under the circumstances, be profoundly unhappy ; 
yes, unqualifiedly wretched, when, at last, the 
heavens above him grow dark, and fate, relentless 
fate, is busy in casting up his ill-kept accounts. 



88 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

Let us now shift this scene from fallible man, 
to the contemplation of a holy and perfect God. 
This adorable Being is the creator of innumer- 
able worlds, together with all their diversified 
and wonderful appendages. Vast and sublime 
as this manifestation of his wisdom and power 
is, the human mind, animated w T ith feelings of 
becoming reverence, and happy in meditating 
upon the manifold and marvellous works of an 
Almighty builder, will not discover anything 
either in what he has made, or in the manner in 
which he governs it, but what is both admirable 
and praiseworthy. His goodness too is every- 
where strikingly manifest, as all animated nature 
amply testifies by its marked susceptibility of the 
great and almost innumerable kinds of enjoyment, 
with which he has so graciously endowed it. In 
short, the world in which he has been pleased to 
place us, is — viewed as a whole, a perfect and 
most pleasing picture of consistency, harmony, 
and loveliness, eminently indicative of the benefi- 
cence of its Divine author, and of its nice adap- 
tation for the happiness of inferior, sentient 
creatures, as well as for the display and glory of 
intelligent life. These are salient truths, patent 
to all, and it seems, therefore, as if no one could 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 89 

be cognizant of them, without being thoroughly 
imbued with the religious sentiment, and led to 
love, adore, and serve God, as is taught in St. 
Matthew xxii. 37, with all his heart, and soul, 
and mind, thus fulfilling one of the essential con- 
ditions of human happiness, as it is clearly the 
w r ant of such filial devotion and profound attach- 
ment to God, that bring so many and heavy af- 
flictions upon the human family; such is the 
dread penalty of a want of fealty toward God, 
and consequent omission of fidelity to our highest 
duty ! 

The lower animals have evidently no other 
way of expressing their gratitude toward God 
for the many and weighty blessings which they 
constantly enjoy, but by the evident satisfaction 
and well-being which they derive from their use : 
from them, therefore, no thanksgiving properly 
so called, or considered as a strictly devotional 
act, can be expected, for both according to Scrip- 
ture and the plain dictates of common sense, 
God does not claim to reap where he has not sown, 
but with regard to man, the case is manifestly 
very different, inasmuch as he is abundantly able 
to recognize and properly to appreciate the source 

whence his great and manifold blessings are ob- 

8* 



90 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

tained, and it is consequently to be presumed that 
he would not only feel deeply grateful, but make 
due acknowledgment, for them to the gracious 
and munificent Giver of every good and perfect 
gift God, indeed, needs no such acknowledg- 
ment for his own sake, but requires it — as expe- 
rience clearly teaches, simply on our account, as 
only a thankful disposition can make a child of 
God happy; that is, fill his soul with a serene 
and joyous satisfaction, which repeats substan- 
tially what St. Paul teaches, when he writes that 
" Godliness with contentment is great gain." 
Hence, finally, if we are not happy, the likeli- 
hood is that beside other minor causes, which 
may affect us disastrously, the chief is most prob- 
ably the crying sin of unthankfulness toward 
God! 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 9 J 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Hypocrisy — as is well known, figures largely as a Cause of 
our Unhappiness. 

A hypocrite is " one/' says Webster, " who 
feigns to be what he is not," or, I may add, one 
who appears and acts under false pretenses. 
Either definition is — I conceive, sufficiently accu- 
rate readily to point out the dangerous and dis- 
graceful class of persons, whom it is intended to 
designate. 

The Jewish sect, known in sacred history, as 
the Pharisees, and to which also belonged the 
Scribes: the learned members of the sect, who 
were the legally recognized exponents and teach- 
ers of the Law, are addressed by Christ con- 
jointly under the repulsive and disreputable title 
of Hypocrites; as — when in tones of menacing 
rebuke, he exclaims : " Woe unto you, scribes, 
Pharisees, hypocrites !" The hideous vice of hy- 
pocrisy, it is evident from a somewhat attentive 
perusal of the twenty-third chapter of the Gos- 



92 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

pel according to St. Matthew, was especially 
hateful and revolting to the exquisite moral sense 
of Christ, not only as a great and appalling wick- 
edness in itself, but also because they who were 
notoriously guilty of it : the Pharisees, were that 
part of the Jewish population, who did most to 
stir up ill-will and opposition against him, thus 
proving mainly instrumental in preventing their 
countrymen from recognizing Christ a savior ! 
After the foregoing preliminary remarks, these 
people, who were the implacable enemies of 
Christ and his reformatory labors, will receive 
such attention as may be deemed appropriate 
under the present heading. 

PARAGRAPH I. 

Hypocrisy in its Scripture-Traits. 

First, Christ censures with deserved vehem- 
ence, the forbidding conduct of the Pharisees, 
because "they shut up the kingdom of heaven 
against men/' neither entering it themselves, nor 
suffering others to enter it. Doubtless these 
wily and most unamiable people, governed en- 
tirely by selfish, groveling motives, and, never, of 
course, thinking of the general welfare of their 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 93 

fellow-beings, or of what is right and proper in 
itself, were indefatigable in their efforts of dis- 
paraging the character and ministry of Jesus 
among their ignorant and deluded countrymen, 
and in calling their attention to the untiring zeal 
and diligence, which they and their adherents 
displayed in behalf of the holy religion and the 
admirable ceremonies in vogue among them, and 
as they had been inviolably handed down to them 
through a long course of ages, from the venerable 
patriarchs and prophets — their thrice meritorious 
and glorious ancestors ! What better could be 
offered to them ? Were not their religious insti- 
tutions more than once solemnly declared to be 
intended to be perpetual ? Were they not, be- 
sides, already the emphatically Chosen People ? 
What need then could they have of a new- 
fangled scheme of salvation ? Away with these 
novelties, they cried ! Crucify the pretender ! 
Such unfair and most reprehensible treatment of 
the Son of Man, has, no doubt, had a decidedly 
damaging influence upon the future destiny of 
the Jewish nation, proving a most prolific and 
never-failing source of diverse and grievous un- 
happiness. 

Second, these impudent hypocrites " for a pre- 



94 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

tenee, made long prayers." — A practice like this, 
was vile and detestable in an eminent degree, and 
it cannot, therefore, be deemed matter of wonder, 
that Jesus peremptorily denounces it as being 
deserving of the " greater damnation/' The 
idea is extremely shocking that a being so frail, 
so erring; a being made of the dust, and that 
must so soon again return to dust, should pre- 
sume to insult his Maker with so vile a thing as 
false pretense : a lie, upon his lips ! I know no 
wickedness, no desecration of the use of speech, 
that is comparable to this, both in respect to its 
daring attempt, and in view of the flagitiousness 
of its guilt. Its blighting effects, not being con- 
fined to the evil-doer, exercise a pernicious in- 
fluence upon persons who are not over-religiously 
inclined, but who — if it was not for such base 
hypocritical, or pretended devotion, would prob- 
ably sooner or later take an interest in religion, • 
and be thus induced to lead a useful and virtuous 
life, whereas — being now disappointed in their 
good opinion of the false pretender, they are un- 
happy, and discouraged from an attempt to be 
pious, or good : their case is the case of thousands, 
and tens of thousands, whom the atrocious sin of 
hypocrisy deters from the sanctuary of God, and 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 95 

for whose bereavement of the consolations of 
religion, pious hypocrites, who pretend to be de- 
vout and Godfearing, will be consequently held 
amenable by the " Searcher of hearts !" 

Third, the Pharisaic hypocrites were seemingly 
very conscientious in paying tithes even upon 
property of such comparatively little value as 
" mint, anise, and cummin," while they made no 
scruple to omit the weighter of the law; as, 
" judgment, mercy, and faith." It is indeed 
much easier, as may readily be conceived, to pay 
a trifling tax than to obey the arduous and never- 
relaxing precepts of the law of God. Besides, 
by the apparent candor and zeal, which these 
crafty and systematic deceivers employed in thus 
studiously giving to the utmost farthing " unto 
Csesar the things which, were Caesar's, " they had 
evidently the design to ingratiate themselves 
with the functionaries of the Roman government, 
and to gain their good opinions, though in tlieir 
hearts, they hated and despised them as the op- 
pressors of their nation. In little things, there- 
fore, they sought to acquire a name for honesty 
among men, while in weightier matters : in- 
volving the conditions of eternal life, they were 
content with simulation — a seeming, thus blindly 



96 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

striving against their own vital interest; their 
nefarious behavior meanwhile, of course, neces- 
sarily disgusting and repelling all honest men : 
at once deeply wounding and scandalizing their 
sensitive souls at the dreadful thought that there 
can be so much wickedness under the fair and 
seductive guise of piety and uprightness. 

Fourth, the Savior next charges those consum- 
mate hypocrites with the vile practice. of making 
clean "the outside of the cup and of the platter," 
while " within they were full of extortion and ex- 
cess." In this passage, it is clear that we have 
to do with figurative language, and that the hypo- 
crites who appeared under a fair and attractive 
form in the eyes of the world, were a good deal 
like the well-cleansed outside of vessels : the in- 
side being still soiled and filthy, while in their 
hearts they were teeming with the disgusting de- 
filement of rank moral corruption ! The gist of 
the argument — in its moral significance, is, there- 
fore, that he w T ho simulates virtues, while his 
heart is wicked and he, perhaps, laughs at the 
idea that people should be sincere and good, is — 
according to Jesus, spiritually blind, and unless 
he shall speedily and thoroughly repent of his 
perverse and evil ways : or, as it is called here, 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 97 

u Cleansing the inside of the cup and of the 
platter," he can expect only woe to be his lot : a 
fate already prospectively denounced against him 
hj Christ, and sure to overtake him, if he persists 
in the hideous vice hypocrisy, on account of the 
bad example which he sets his fellow-beings, and 
the grievous no less than manifold evils, which 
his abominable hypocrisy inflicts upon the cause 
of virtue and the happiness of mankind, by its 
wicked and baneful enticements to the imitation 
of a feigned and godless life. 

Fifth, considered as religious teachers, Christ 
unhesitatingly calls them " blind guides;" that is 
treacherous or false guides, and says — the text 
being properly rendered in English, that they 
" strained out the gnat but swallowed the camel !" 
Who can doubt that hyperorthodoxy is here 
meant to be castigated ? For if only his shibboleth 
is well defined and rigidly carried out, no matter 
what becomes of men's souls, or what may be the 
practical state of morals among mankind, the 
hypocritical teacher of religion is seemingly well 
content: his faith saves us, works are soterially 
or in a saving point of view, of no account : so 
substantially and sadly enough, reads the dogma 
on justification in the Protestant creeds ! 



98 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

Sixth, the Pharisaical hypocrites — in the 
Savior's time, tried to make their contemporaries 
believe that if they had lived in the days of 
their fathers, they would not have imbrued their 
hands in the blood of the prophets; and so — to 
verify their sincerity, they built to the memory 
of those murdered guardians of the Law, splendid 
monuments, richly garnished, thus sparing no 
pains to propagate the idea that it was piety that 
prompted them to such noble deeds, on account 
— such they pretended was their profound vener- 
ation for those ancient worthies, of the important 
services which they had rendered to mankind, as 
also because they considered no sacrifices on their 
part too great or costly to do them honor, or 
illustrate their fame. But, alas, their piety was 
feigned, and their ostensible love for ancestral 
virtue, a mockery. For Christ, who knew them, 
predicted that they would crucify and kill in 
various other ways, the " prophets, and wise 
men, and scribes," whom he should send among 
them ! Such is a brief abstract of the repulsive 
traits of hypocrisy, as it is portrayed in the 
Gospel. But brief as it is, it shows that it is 
better to be honest than to be a rogue ; and that 
it is easier to appear what you are, than to feign 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 99 

what you are not. The following distich, from 
the terse and fertile pen of Scott, admirably 
expresses the hypocrite's case : 

" O what a tangled web we weave, 
When first we practice to deceive ! ? ' 



PARAGRAPH II. 

Hypocrisy in its Present or General Manifestations. 

First, the hypocrite — viewed in a connubial 
light. — Considered as a lover, it may be justly 
affirmed that he wooes to deceive ; that, accord- 
ingly, he pretends to one thing while he aims at 
another. He makes people believe that he loves 
the woman who receives his addresses, simply 
for the sake of her many and rare virtues; that 
his sole desire is to build up an honorable and 
happy household; and to enjoy the companion- 
ship of a chaste and sensible woman. Alas, his 
asseverations are all mere false pretense : a snare 
and a delusion. His only object — the object of a 
vulgar soul, is to get possession of her money, 
and to have the means to live in affluence, in dis- 
sipation, and in idleness. Too late, the poor, de- 
luded and injured woman, sees her error, and 



100 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY f 

repents of a misplaced confidence, when all that 
she can do is, to suffer in silence and die, or to 
give vent to her outraged feelings, and cover her 
treacherous husband with bitter reproaches, per- 
haps with fierce maledictions, and to lead an un- 
happy life of contention, want, and wretched- 
ness, cursing the day on which the inauspicious 
nuptial tie was consummated ! Such is the 
method, and such the fruit of the hypocrite's 
wooing : a wooing that has for its basis the wily 
arts and schemes of false pretense; that is at 
once wicked in its inception, and disastrous in its 
consequences. A wooing that makes an unsus- 
pecting, innocent woman, the unhappy victim of 
a selfish, unprincipled hypocrite, who never scru- 
ples to sacrifice the happiness and fair fame of 
others, to his own sinister and diabolical ends ! 

Second, to deceive or gain his groveling and 
wicked ends, the hypocrite simulates piety. His 
business or pursuit cannot well dispense with the 
patronage of church-people, and, therefore, to 
get their custom or their vote, he pretends to 
have religion much at heart, and is diligent in 
commendation of its paramount importance to 
the human race. He goes to church, though he 
cannot see that it will be of any spiritual benefit 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 101 

to him; he listens attentively and with becoming 
gravity to the sermon or the lecture ; takes an 
active, perhaps, leading, part in the devotional 
exercises; contributes liberally to defray ex- 
penses ; and is, to all appearance, a sincere wor- 
shiper and humble Christian. The congregation 
now lives in daily expectation that he will join 
the church, while his adroit hypocrisy enables 
him as constantly to evade their solicitations, and 
to disappoint their wishes. He does not want 
to maintain a full membership relation to the 
church ; oh no. All that he wants, is personal 
gain : self-aggrandizement ! His pious manceu- 
vering is, of course, mere pretense. Sooner or 
later his contemptible wiles will become mani- 
fest, and the finger of just scorn be pointed at 
him. But what does he care of that ? He has 
gained his vile ends, and what is more to be de- 
plored, he has proved a stumbling-block to many, 
who, but for his deceitful and misleading con- 
duct : perplexing the unsophisticated mind with 
suspicion, and filling it with doubt about the 
saving efficacy of religion generally, might have 
in time — as has been already observed on a kin- 
dred occasion, espoused the cause of Christ, and 

become his sincere and faithful disciples. Such 

9* 



102 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

is one of the subtle and mischievous episodes of 
hypocrisy, not uncommon in recent experiences 
and regrets of church-life ! 

Third, the hypocrite is sometimes in the pul- 
pit ! Can it be possible ? Ay, it is only too true 
to be doubted. It is notorious that among the 
many thousands of ostensibly Christian ministers, 
there is seldom one that confesses to a change of 
creed, or is known to forsake his existing eccle- 
siastical relations ! How can so singular a fact 
be accounted for on honest principle, or a just 
sense of duty ? It is certain that the human 
mind — unless it is altogether brutish, cannot be 
prevented from thinking, whence it follows that 
it must often arrive at conclusions, which differ 
materially from received orthodox opinions. And 
yet — with rare exceptions, the same dogmas con- 
tinue to be taught, and the same sect-peculiari- 
ties to be maintained, as they were interpreted 
and received on the day of ordination. The so- 
lution which the case seems to demand here, can 
— I presume, be given readily enough : to desert 
a creed and secede from old and familiar reli- 
gious associations, requires two important quali- 
fications, first, honesty, which will not hesitate 
openly to declare its convictions, and, second, 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 103 

courage, which will assert them at all hazards 
and in the face of the world. It seems clear 
then, that many ministers sadly lack these praise- 
worthy qualities, and that personal considera- 
tions, or — in other words, selfish motives, govern 
their conduct in this most weighty matter. A 
state, so decidedly unnatural to the human mind, 
and — at the same time, so inimical to the plain 
dictates of conscience, premises — I am un- 
feignedly sorry to say it, the existence of a large 
and fearful amount of hypocrisy in the Churches, 
and proves — without a doubt, that the god of 
many ministers, is — as the Apostle expresses it, 
" Their belly !" 

Fourth, politicians too are often guilty of the 
flagitious vice hypocrisy. It is wonderful how 
some of the " office-seekers" fawn and smile in 
the presence of their constituents ; how they flat- 
ter the voter and — with seeming candor, reiterate 
the promise of a diligent and faithful discharge 
of the sacred trust that would be committed to 
their care, in case they should be elected to office, 
is well known, and the shameful infringement of 
this solemn promise, either in consequence of 
incompetence, or — which is perhaps more fre- 
quently the case, of treachery, is also a fact of 



104 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

familiar as well as most painful occurrence ! Such 
men are simply base hypocrites : traitors to their 
country, whose aim is the " spoils of office/' and 
who, therefore, care but little for the welfare of the 
State, or the sanctity of its institutions. Hence, 
if ever our glorious star-spangled banner shall 
cease to wave in the breeze of " the Land of the 
Free, and the Home of the Brave," the hypocrit- 
ical, faithless politicians will have a fearful reck- 
oning to answer. They cannot, therefore, learn 
too soon, or too well, that " honesty is the best 
policy," and save their names from the just 
brand of eternal infamy ! 

CONCLUSION. 

First, the hypocrite may with propriety be gen- 
erally characterized as a wily, perfidious pre- 
tender, who has not the courage or generosity to 
say what he thinks, or to do what he ought to 
do ; who— instead of pursuing a straightforward, 
honest course of conduct, seeks to attain his sin- 
ister ends, by devious by-ways and the use of 
unmanly and contemptible tricks. The hypocrite 
— being thus devoid of all nobleness of prin- 
ciple, which alone can dignify and exalt human 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 105 

nature, he is emphatically a monster that — as St. 
Peter writes of the Devil, " Walketh about, seek- 
ing whom he may devour !" 

Second, and lastly, the hypocrite is a base and 
wilful denier of the truth, the best and greatest 
gift of God to man, and hence, guilty of treason 
against his Maker; for he basely disavows the 
open, manly spirit, with which God has primarily 
endowed the human race, thus betraying his sa- 
cred and inviolable trust, for worldly gain and 
selfish ends. He is no longer one with God, but 
has wickedly fallen away from the glory of the 
Divine image, in which he was made, and in- 
stead, therefore, of beirtg any longer a child of 
God, possessing the lofty and graceful stature of 
manhood, he has degenerated into a ridiculous 
simulacrum — a fraud, whom the Judge of the 
world, will only then again own and bless when 
he shall have confessed his guilt, and forsaken 
his evil ways ! 



106 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY $ 



CHAPTER IX. 

In which are pointed out Some Defects of the Common- 
School System of Pennsylvania, and is demonstrated that— 
not working quite evenly, it is : notwithstanding its Many 
Advantages, by no means Faultless, and, hence, a Source 
of Several Grave Evils. 

The expressions primary school and common 
school are, according to our distinguished lexi- 
cographer, "Webster, essentially the same, for — 
in treating upon the term school, he says : " A 
primary school is a school for instructing children 
in the first rudiments of language and literature ; 
called, also, a common school, because it is open to 
the children of all the inhabitants in a town or 
district." 

"What in the investigation of this subject, can- 
not but strike a person as very remarkable in the 
common-school system of Pennsylvania, is, that 
it presents at once an elementary and a collegi- 
ate aspect : the former being recognized in a 
proper, legitimate confinement of the public in- 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 107 

struction to the emphatically common-school 
system of education, while the latter, in the in- 
troduction, or use, of the higher branches of 
learning, singularly ignores the original, plain 
intention of the system : the exclusive provision 
of a common, practical course of education, 
suited to the ordinary wants and pursuits of the 
citizens, never dreaming it seems, that such ad- 
ditional and more abstruse scholastic lore, can- 
not, with any sense of propriety, be included 
under the simple, well-defined phrase common- 
school education. 

If now we inquire what is the nature of the 
instruction, which is to be imparted under this 
system of education, the answer is thus readily 
given : " The branches of knowledge" which — 
according to the " Common School Laws of Penn- 
sylvania," &c, are to be taught in the common 
schools, " are orthography, reading, writing, arith- 
metic, geography, and grammar ;" and they are — 
as appears further from the same reliable source 
of information, " Peremptorily required to be 
taught in every district — that is, to every pupil 
in every school in the district, who requires in- 
struction in either or all of them." 

In addition to the common-school branches of 



108 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

education, noticed in the preceding paragraph, 
" The law" — it is, moreover, stated by the same 
authority already referred to, " permits and en- 
joins provision for instruction in such other 
branches as the board of directors may require." 
The introduction of higher branches of instruc- 
tion into the common schools as well as the de- 
termination of the number and the kinds of 
such branches of instruction, is, therefore, en- 
tirely left to the discretion of the board of school- 
directors, and they may — it likewise appears, 
make such disposition in the case as they please, 
being thus empowered without restraint or gain- 
say, of teaching any of the arts and sciences 
which have heretofore been looked upon as ap- 
propriately appertaining to the learned profes- 
sions, and, therefore, constituting a strictly scien- 
tific course of study, confined to a usual college- 
curriculum. A license like this, which is capable 
of unlimited extent, may be in accord with the 
constitution of Pennsylvania, but it is, neverthe- 
less, a grave abuse of the primary, common- 
sense intentions of a common-school education. 
School-directors are not always competent to act 
wisely and well for the best interests of the 
people, even if the introduction of higher 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 109 

branches of learning into elementary schools, 
was not — as it seems to be, a flagrant contra- 
diction of our sense of propriety, or judgment 
of the fitness of things ! 

There is only one bar — it appears, to the un- 
limited exercise of power intrusted to the board 
of common-school directors, and that is the 
wants, or progress of the pupils. For, thus say 
the laws of the State on the subject, " The only 
limits to the course of instruction in a common 
school, is that set by the wants of the pupils and 
the discretion of the board. The higher branches 
of learning should not, however, be introduced, 
either into mixed schools or those of grades es- 
tablished for the purpose, till full provision has 
been made for the instruction in the rudimental 
branches above named, of all who need them." 
To the foregoing information upon the subject 
of our common-school system, the simple remark 
may be considered sufficient, that common sense 
would seem to dictate that a pupil should not be 
advanced to a higher " grade," till he has ac- 
quired a thorough knowledge of the inferior 
branches of study, and that no especial proviso 
is necessary in the case. 

Again, " the board of directors of the common 

10 



HO WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY f 

schools," which by-the-by are often very un- 
common, " shall direct what books shall be used," 
&c. This exclusive privilege to control the supply 
and kinds of books, which are to be used in the 
common schools, affords the board of directors — 
in case they should not be governed by strict 
principles of integrity, an opportunity to make 
the purchase of school-books a means of personal 
gain, to the serious detriment of course, of the 
parties who must be at the expense of buying 
those books, and hence, so questionable a power 
should not be granted unconditionally, but be 
subject, more or less, to the will of the people, 
who are directly interested in the traffic of school- 
books. For this end, the people of the State of 
Pennsylvania, should from time to time, call 
public meetings in the different school- districts, 
and discuss the common-school interest in such a 
manner that no unnecessary expenses might be 
incurred in the administration of public instruc- 
tion ; for it behooves them to know that the 
school-books, which they are obliged to purchase, 
amount annually, at the least calculation, to one 
million dollars. Beside this large sum of money, 
which is immediately derived from the property 
of the taxable inhabitants of the State, the Com- 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? \\\ 

monwealth advances — from funds of the general 
revenue, one million dollars more toward defray- 
ing the annual common-school expenses ; and 
which too — of course, is obtained from the re- 
sources of the State ; and, hence, from the sub- 
stance of the people. 

A change of books is, no doubt, often un- 
necessarily frequent, and consequently the outlay 
for books uselessly augmented. This wasteful 
practice is very censurable, and should not be 
allowed without good reason. If the people— 
who are so intimately concerned in the issue of 
the question, are not permitted to have a voice 
in the matter of introducing new school-books, 
then they are virtually disfranchised, and the 
constitution of the State, guaranteeing the sover- 
eignty of the people, and reposing in them the 
ultimate trust of all political power as well as of 
all social well-being, is practically subverted by 
this somewhat arbitrary school-law, and there is 
an end of free-government ! It is, alas, too much 
the case in our country, that the representatives 
of the people, instead of maintaining a dependent 
and respectful relation to their constituents, as it 
behooves them to do, are too apt to forget the 
source of their power, and prove false to their duty. 



112 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

The common-school system of Pennsylvania, 
in making provision for the introduction of 
the higher branches of education to be taught 
in the schools, is often — without intending it, I 
doubt not, the means of treating the poor with 
marked injustice ; for it is only the children of 
rich citizens who can avail themselves of the ad- 
vantages of a high-school course of education, 
while those of the poor, must soon put their 
hands to some useful industrial occupation, to 
contribute toward the support of the family. 
Such being the disadvantages under which the 
poor labor in reference to the acquisition of a 
common-school education, it is not likely that 
many can avail themselves of the more expensive 
course of study embraced under the comprehen- 
sive phrase higher branches of knowledge* Yet not- 
withstanding this fact, the poor — without : owing 
to their circumstances, deriving any advantage 
from the higher grades of education, must pay 
taxes as well as those whom fortune has treated 
more kindly. The unfairness is patent and 
striking ! 

An item of expense : not to be overlooked in 

* More expensive both in regard to books and clothing. 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? H3 

this investigation, and which is incident to this 
anomalous, twin system of education, in Penn- 
sylvania, is the increase of rent, which it is 
chiefly the lot of poor people to pay; for a 
school-course in the higher branches of learning, 
being — as has been just stated, comparatively 
expensive, the amount of taxes which it is, hence, 
necessary to levy, is derived in a great measure 
from the owners of real estate, who — to indem- 
nify themselves in some degree, raise the rent on 
their property, and the tenants are consequently 
much inconvenienced by the additional burden 
which they are thus called upon to bear, a meas- 
ure which is indeed unjust in itself, but which 
can ultimately trace its iniquitous origin to the 
higher-branches division of our common-school 
system of education ! This — by no means pleas- 
ing fact, furnishes another serious objection 
against this heterogeneous dual system of educa- 
tion, and pleads loudly for the discarding of the 
higher branches of education from the common- 
school interest of Pennsylvania. People ask 
"fair play,' 7 and will, I hope, stand up for their 
rights ! 

It seems very evident then that the higher 
branches of learning, should not be introduced 

10* 



114 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

into a system of education that has ostensibly for 
its object common-school education ; that it cannot 
be made to work equitably to all classes ; and 
that it is an evident violation of the sacred prin- 
ciple of equal rights. If a common-school edu- 
cation has been acquired, according to the course 
prescribed by law, and any pupils wish to prose- 
cute their studies further, and consequently to 
attain greater proficiency in learning, let them 
go elsewhere where they will find institutions, 
which are exclusively devoted to such purpose ; 
but let them not seek to get learned or wise at 
the expense of the poorer citizens. 

Owing to the diversity of opinion by which 
boards of directors are often distinguished, it will 
happen — as frequent examples can testify, that 
in some school-districts, the common branches 
only of education are taught, while in others, the 
high-school innovation is rigidly enforced. The 
adoption of measures so diverse in the pursuit of 
the same object, is, of course, not seldom the 
cause of very unpleasant feelings and, sometimes, 
even of fierce contention, both among the people 
and the directors. Such disagreeable and un- 
seemly incidents could not occur if this system 
of education was true to its primary intention 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? H5 

— the instruction of the rising generation in 
those branches of knowledge only, which arc 
designated as primary, or rudimental, and hence 
appropriately denominated common-school edu- 
cation : the system — it is very evident, is at 
once, vague and inconsistent; a fact which every 
sensible and patriotic man must deeply deplore, 
and, therefore, sincerely wish it might be other- 
wise. 

Another objection to the introduction of higher 
branches of knowledge into our common-school 
system of instruction, and not to be lightly passed 
over in this place, has reference to childless citi- 
zens. The citizens, composing this class of per- 
sons are — as far as is known, generally well-dis- 
posed toward a system of education, which gen- 
erously aims to give a good common education 
to all the children indiscriminately of the Com- 
monwealth ; they cheerfully pay their quota of 
the taxes for this end, and think themselves 
happy in being permitted to contribute toward an 
end, which is so well meant, and which is calcu- 
lated to do so much good : they want the poor — 
for whose sake chiefly the common schools of 
Pennsylvania have been introduced, to share the 
privileges of a good rudimentary education alike 



116 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

with the rich.* But they protest — as all men of 
common sense and in favor of equal rights, must 
do, against a law which compels them to pay for 
the education of children, whose parents are often 
richer than themselves, and who, instead of being 
content with the prescribed common branches of 
education, and thankful for the advantages here- 
tofore enjoyed, ignobly aspire to become learned 
by the unjust use of other men's means ! 

Finally, the great, the crying defect under 
which the common-school system of Pennsylva- 
nia, suffers, is its striking omission of all moral 
instruction : I say nothing here of what may be 
property called religious education, as that is more 
suitably confided to the care of the Church. The 
total absence of the moral element in a school- 
system in a Christian land, is certainly a phenom- 
enon well calculated to create alarm ; for a per- 
son, who has the good of his fellow-beings at 
heart, has eminent reason for apprehending the 
worst consequences from so flagrant an oversight 
in the education and proper bringing-up of chil- 

* I wish it to be distinctly understood, that I am not at en- 
mity either with the rich or with riches, considered in them- 
selves : the rich are often good people, and riches may prove 
a great blessing to mankind. 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? H7 

dren. Education — I am bold to say, without a 
careful moral training, is essentially worthless, 
caring only and simply for the acquisition of 
knowledge, but not also and mainly for the in- 
culcation of virtue, thus being one-sided, and 
utterly unfitted to make good citizens and happy 
men and women. 

The education of the young — to be suitable, 
or, in other words, efficient, and to answer its 
appropriate and hallowed ends, must by all means 
include the paramount lesson, that there is a 
God, who is the creator of all things, and the 
giver of every good gift : on whom we are, there- 
fore, dependent for our lives and for all that we 
have ; that he requires us to obey his laws, and 
to be faithful toward him in all the relations of 
life ; and that, as must be clear to all, we are ac- 
countable to him for the manner in which we 
live, or use his gifts, and will be rewarded or 
punished accordingly as it shall appear that we 
have been either good or bad. 

Toward this august and holy Being, they 
should be diligently and earnestly taught to cher- 
ish the most profound veneration ; to be cor- 
dially and supremely thankful for his manifold 
and innumerable blessings; and especially to 



118 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

make the pious conviction — that God will ever 
govern us in such ways only as shall prove 
to be best for us, at once the motive of willing 
obedience, and the exhaustless source of a cheer- 
ful and happy confidence. 

Children — it must seem self-evident to the re- 
flecting mind, should not be brought up in igno- 
rance of what duties they owe toward their fel- 
low-beings, or — in other words, how it behooves 
them to deport themselves toward them ; for their 
happiness or misery in life is, in a great measure, 
the undoubted result of their conduct accordingly 
as it is of moral or of immoral import. Hence, 
above all other moral lessons — of a social nature, 
they should be most assiduously taught to do to 
others as they would wish them — under similar 
circumstances, to do to themselves. A duty so 
comprehensive includes, of course, not only the 
weightier precepts of the moral law, but also the 
observance of common politeness, especially, how- 
ever, the esthetic grace of respect toward their 
seniors, including both parents and elderly per- 
sons generally. The aged, or such individuals 
as are, more or less, advanced in maturer years, 
are presumed to have acquired wisdom from ex- 
perience, and, hence, the young who are not 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? H9 

brought up to show proper respect, or to behave 
with becoming decorum, toward them, are justly to 
be regarded as ill-bred, and foredoomed to suffer 
the many and grave evils, incident to bold-faced- 
ness and a froward behavior. It is notorious 
that — to judge from the frequent examples of 
rudeness and boisterous insolence, moral prin- 
ciples are not included among the branches of 
education, which are taught in the common 
schools of Pennsylvania, and so far at least, as 
this is the case, they are egregiously and deplor- 
ably deficient in the most important and indis- 
pensable element of a good, Christian education. 
It is a sad, daily experience of tax-payers, to be 
treated with disrespect and even contumely, by 
children who are educated through means of 
their money. May a sounder tuition inspire bet- 
ter manners, and lead to happier issues ! 

The following pithy couplet, taken from Pope's 
" Essay on Man/' will pertinently conclude this 
chapter : 

" Know then this truth — enough for man to know, 
Virtue alone is happiness below." 



120 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY i 



CHAPTER X. 

The Unseemly Manner in which People mourn for the Dead, 
tends not a little to make Mankind Unhappy. 

There is perhaps no sadder sight in all nature, 
than that of a human being mourning for the 
dead, provided, of course, that his mourning is 
truly heart-felt and, therefore, sincere : it is the 
natural unburdening of the soul, and to shed a 
tear; to heave a sigh; to break out in deep, melt- 
ing tones of lamentation, seems to be but a just 
tribute due to those, whom in life we have es- 
teemed so highly, or loved so long and so ten- 
derly. Not to mourn for such as these, would 
argue want of proper feeling; would be deci- 
dedly unnatural; would be, in short, disgraceful, 
and eminently unworthy the sacred name human- 
ity. The idea that it is unmanly to give utterance 
to our grief even in but subdued emotions, or in 
the expression of a grave, mournful look, is as 
puerile as it is extravagant, and clearly militates 
against the dictates of universal human experi- 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? | 21 

ence. It must, therefore, have its origin in a de- 
praved, sickly feeling, little creditable to our na- 
ture. And I hesitate not to say, that he who is 
incapable of mourning, is likewise incapable of 
rejoicing, and that, instead of being an unexcep- 
tional pattern of humanity, he is — in a moral 
point of view at least, a monster ; that is, a man 
without a heart ! 

Here the following stanza from the poetical 
effusions of Hill, may be suitably introduced as 
an appropriate conclusion to the foregoing para- 
graph : 

" Hide not thy tears ; weep boldly, and be proud 
To give the flowing virtue manly way : 
'Tis nature's mark to know an honest heart by, 
Shame on those breasts of stone that cannot melt 
In soft adoption of another's sorrow !" 

If I believe that the friend, the relative, whom 
death has snatched away from me, is not happy ; 
is — according to the Calvinistic and other hyper- 
orthodox beliefs, in a hell of fire, and doomed 
to its concomitant : everlasting torment, I may 
well mourn, weep, nay, cry and wail in the sharp 
and deadly anguish of the soul. In such dis- 
tressing case, I would not only mourn the death 

11 



122 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

and the removal from me of a human being, in 
whose smiling presence I was once happy, but 
— being still in profound and undying sympathy 
with him : friend ever tenderly, lovingly cling- 
ing to friend, I would mourn my own supreme 
unhappiness, in the appalling and terrible thought 
that my friend was in hell : a thought which I 
could not for a moment entertain without being 
myself in an incipient state of hell-torment. I can, 
therefore, readily understand why the believers in 
a retribution of a hell of tire : a Gehenna, " Where 
their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched/' 
should mourn and sorrow with the vehemence of 
a hopeless despair. A faith, thank God, which 
is daily growing more and more obsolete, and 
which — becoming finally extinct : as it most as- 
suredly must, w T ill be the means of closing up a 
most prolific as well as an extremely pernicious 
source of human sorrow and misery, thus en- 
abling poor, stricken, mourning souls to breathe 
more freely, and to think of the future and their 
dear ones, without the fear and trembling, inci- 
dent to a belief so little in accord with common 
sense and the infinite goodness and mercy of our 
heavenly Father. 

There is — I may next observe, an occasion for 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 123 

mourning on funeral events, which should : it 
seems, elicit the kindliest and most indulgent 
feelings of our fellow-beings, and be, therefore, 
an amply sufficient cause for the most liberal 
exercise of their forbearance and long suffering 
toward us : an occasion, which has its origin in 
doubt about a future existence of the human 
race. There is no subject which can engage 
human attention more distressing, more dreadful 
in fact, than the thought that our dear, cherished 
ones, when they die, will cease, perhaps forever 
cease, to be, namely, as conscientious personal 
entities, and that we too when we die, will ter- 
minate our existence as organic animate beings, 
by undergoing decomposition, and returning to 
the original elements : supposed or feared, in the 
present instance, to be the sole constituents of 
which our bodies are, at present composed. 

The Gospel, which teaches in precise and posi- 
tive language, a life to come, should afford 
abundant consolation to those who have no doubt 
of its truth, and be, therefore, a very cogent 
means of moderating our mourning demonstra- 
tion. Beside the express scriptural teaching upon 
this eminently salient and interesting subject, I 
deem it proper, in this place, to direct the reader's 



124 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

attention to my recent Work, entitled " The 
Belief in Immortality, on purely Logical Princi- 
ples," in which — I think, I have demonstrated 
the eminent likelihood, that independently of 
any evangelical reasons for such a belief, we have 
very strong and most encouraging inducements 
for indulging the pleasing conviction that man 
is destined to realize a great and glorious here- 
after ! 

It is to be fervently hoped, that the firm and 
undoubted belief in a future life, will soon be- 
come the inestimable heritage of the whole hu- 
man race ; for without this belief : which is the 
very sheet-anchor of our hope, human happiness 
here must continue forever to be most lamentably 
defective, and remain one of the chief causes of 
expressing our mourning on funeral occasions, 
with inconsolable vehemence — in fact, with the 
energy of blank despair : thus afflicting and tor- 
menting with doubt and misgiving the human 
mind, on the great and absorbing question of a 
future existence of man; an existence which 
alone can give to the soul its purest peace, and 
prove our dearest, fondest hope's surest, happiest 
realization ! 

As God has predestined mankind to die, and 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 125 

as it is, therefore, liis will that the separation of 
one person from the other through the inter- 
vention of death, should take place, it might 
seem from a mere glance at the subject, as if all 
demonstration of regret or sorrow, however slight 
or guarded it might be, on the occasion of the 
death of a human being, was radically and alto- 
gether improper, nay, even highly sinful, because 
it is a mourning over what God has ordained, 
and what must, therefore, be considered good 
and proper in itself; and, hence, all things in 
the case, duly weighed, the best for us ! But in 
reply to this rather too hasty view of the subject, 
I observe that the custom of mourning for the 
dead, is, apparently, as old as the human race ; 
that — as far as is known, it is common to all 
mankind in every part of the globe; and that, 
consequently, the pain, which we feel, and the 
expression of grief, which we manifest, upon 
funeral occasions, must be not only eminently 
natural to us, but emphatically innate in our con- 
stitution. Its origin, potentially, is therefore evi- 
dently from God, and such being the fact, his 
intention must have been that man should mourn 
the death of his fellow-beings, not — by any means, 

in boisterous, unseemly utterances of grief, but 

ll* 



126 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

in a chastened, rational manner, nobly free from 
all violent and inordinate emotion. But I am 
anticipating later themes on this subject, and will 
only barely remark, that to be moved at death's 
grim and dismal inroads upon the fair domain of 
the living, requires a Stoicism, which is possible 
only to comparatively few men, and cannot there- 
fore, be expected as a gift and grandeur common 
alike to all. 

Before I shall invite attention to what may, 
perhaps, not inappropriately, be called home- 
scenes of mourning, I will introduce the reader 
to some examples of funeral ceremonies among 
the Jews, as set forth in the Bible: in the ac- 
complishment of this task, I shall follow the lead 
of the interesting little book, entitled " The 
Bible Expositor," &c. — Accordingly in Exodus 
xxxiii. 4, we find that when on a certain sombre oc- 
casion, the people mourned, " no man did put on 
him his ornaments," and, hence looked, of course, 
as unaesthetic and repellent as he could. In Luke 
xxiii. 48, it is stated that the people, who witnessed 
the ' crucifixion of the Savior, " Smote their 
breasts." Again, Jeremiah ix. 17-18, we read of 
mourning women, who were to be called together 
to bewail the impending calamitous fate of the 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 127 

Jewish people : " And let them/' writes the 
Prophet, " make haste, and take up a wailing for 
us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and 
our eyelids gush out with waters." According to 
the same Prophet that has been just quoted, 
chapter xxii. 18, Jehoiakim was a very bad king, 
and the people were enjoined not to lament for 
him, saying, "Ah, my brother! or, Ah, my 
sister ! they shall not lament for him, saying, 
Ah Lord ! or, Ah, his glory !" From a further 
consultation of the prophecies of the son of 
Hilkiah, chapter xvi. 5, it appears that a part of 
Jewish mourning consisted in the lugubrious and 
painful act of " bemoaning" the dead. Job — on 
the calamitous event which had befallen him, 
" rent his mantle," we are told, and " shaved his 
head;" while it is said of Joseph, the Jewish 
viceroy of Egypt; G-enesis xlv. 1-2, that when 
he made himself know T n to his brethren, " he wept 
aloud," so loud indeed, that the " Egyptians 
and the house of Pharaoh heard him" ! Rude, 
boisterous music too, the Jews had to make more 
hideous and appalling their barbarous funeral 
solemnities; for it is said, Matthew ix. 23, 
" Jesus came into the ruler's house, and saw the 
minstrels and the people making a noise." Be- 



128 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

side these various kinds of extravagant manifes- 
tations of mourning, it appears from the warning 
which it was deemed necessary to administer to 
the Jews in primitive times, as may be seen in 
Leviticus xix. 28, and Deuteronomy xiv. 1, that 
on mourning occasions, they cut and otherwise 
disfigured themselves similarly to the practice, 
common among the priests of Baal, 1 Kings 
xviii. 28. The texts, referred to, read thus : " Ye 
shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the 
dead." And again, " Ye are the children of the 
Lord your God : ye shall not cut yourselves, nor 
make any baldness between your eyes for the 
dead." 

I do not at all wonder that the Jews indulged 
in excessive and, indeed, very grotesque modes 
of expressing their grief at the death of one 
of their race; for — as far as their canonical 
books* give any information about a hereafter, 
the substance of their belief, relatively to the 
state of the dead— as I have clearly shown in my 
Work on " The Teachings of Providence, or 
New Lessons on Old Subjects," was, that they 
occupied a gloomy, dismal subterranean region, 

* Distinguished as such by the Protestants. 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 129 

called Sheol, or Hades, and that they were in a 
kind of a semi-somnolent, or half conscious con- 
dition of existence.* — To have had ideas about 
the departed dead, so little satisfactory and genial 
upon this most salient subject of human interest, 
as these — of so decidedly spectral a nature, must 
have been, was enough to fill the poor, bereft, 
and disconsolate souls with absolute consterna- 
tion and dismay, and they, accordingly go a 
great way to apologize or suggest extenuation 
for their wild, ungovernable expressions of soul- 
desolating sorrows, at the celebration of their 
dismal and heart-rending obsequies : well calcu- 
lated to spread its depressing and desponding 
influences over the whole dread scene of death 
and the grave. 

The style of mourning, common among many 
Christians, will next demand a concise notice. 
When I speak of Christians, I mean, of course, 
not merely nominal disciples of Christ, but gen- 
uine, or sincere believers, who mean what they 

* The Jews — like the Christians prior to the heliocentric 
theory of our astronomical system, as taught hy Copernicus, 
believed that the earth is a plane, and the immovable centre 
of the universe : hence their belief in its adaptation for an 
under-world spirit-abode. 



130 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

profess, and who — it is to be supposed, ought to 
live in harmony with the spirit and meaning of 
their profession. "When, therefore, Christians 
of this stamp, " go into mourning," it is to be 
expected that they should mourn as those that 
" have hope," in respect to the future destiny of 
their fellow-Christian friends and relatives, who 
have departed from this life. But such, alas, is 
often not the case ; for although they confidently 
assure us, that they have no doubt : oh, no ! not 
the least doubt, that they are in a happy, blessed 
state of existence, ay, in heaven itself, and that — 
after a little while, the lapse of a few, short years 
at most, they will find them there again, yet will 
they weep, and mourn, and sorrow as if their 
hearts must break, and their very souls dissolve 
in the anguish of tribulation. Nothing — under 
such lugubrious circumstances, but the healing 
soothing influence of time, change of scene, joy- 
ful events, or the pressing cares of life, will be 
able to assuage the profundity of their grief: like 
Eachel, the wife of the patriarch Jacob, weeping 
for her children, they refuse to be comforted, 
" because they are not." 

What a wonderfully strange and glaring con- 
tradiction this is of the professedly Christian be- 



WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 131 

lief in the immortality and certain happiness of 
the presumed pious dead ! For if I firmly be- 
lieve in an undoubted happy future in store for 
the dead who " die in the Lord/' and who, be- 
sides, are so near and dear to me, why should I 
not much rather rejoice, nay, be exceedingly glad 
in the beatific conviction, that they have gone 
into a world where they are supposed to be freed 
from the many cares, the anxieties, the sickness, 
in short, from the almost innumerable reverses, 
incident to the checkered scenes of this life, and 
where — it is boldly asserted, they " rest from 
their labors and their works follow them." In- 
stead, however, of cherishing a frame of mind 
conformably to such pleasing views — so well cal- 
culated to make the mourners happy, and inspire 
them with a praiseworthy magnanimity, these 
people, bearing the name Christians, clothe them- 
selves in sable habiliments; assume dejected and 
lugubrious visages : seldom speak, and then only 
in a monotonous, wailing voice : sighing and la- 
menting with the persistent assiduity of a seem- 
ingly hopeless despair. If these persons are so 
certain of the salvation and celestial felicity of 
the dead, why do they not rather forbear alto- 
gether from mourning : making themselves and 



132 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

others extremely and needlessly unhappy, and, 
on the contrary, rejoice and thank God that at 
least one soul more is safe, and that they shall 
soon and forever share in its bliss and glory ? 

The conduct of these, so glaringly self-contra- 
dicting Christians, is so exceedingly remarkable, 
that the only way to explain it is, either that the 
persons, who are guilty of it, are really not Chris- 
tians, though they think and say that they are, or 
that their Christianity is of a low, inferior kind, 
and that its fruits are consequently of a very im- 
perfect or — rather, defective quality, suited much 
better to be classed — as a psychical phenomenon, 
under the category of the Law than of that of the 
Gospel, and that these unhappily contradictory 
Christians are in fact rather Jewish than Chris- 
tian mourners, whose mission it clearly is, that 
while they mourn, they must not distress, but 
cheer; not repel, but invite: their dead has — 
they fondly believe, ascended into the Father's 
house above, why then — I repeat, mourn for him, 
ay, mourn for him, with such distressing and 
fatal pertinacity, and cast a death-chill over all 
who have the misfortune to come near them ? 

Admitting that these equivocal mourners are 
Christians — as they claim to be, notwithstanding 



WHAT MAKES US UX HAPPY? 133 

they are apparently only in a rudimentary stage 
of evangelical progress, we have no other alter- 
native to account for their inconsistent and un- 
amiable behavior as mourners, but to come to 
the reluctant conclusion, that they say of the 
dead; of whose happiness they profess to have 
not the slightest doubt, what they do not believe 
to be strictly and irrefragably true, and that they 
accordingly simulate a belief: perhaps from mo- 
tives of family-pride, or social considerations, 
&c, in his future well-being, but do not express 
a conviction of an actual fact. People — the 
habit is proverbially notorious, have a decided 
propensity for speaking well of the dead,* and, 
hence, hopefully of their future destiny : a laud- 
able habit it must be owned, if the good will 
toward the dead is deserved ; but to clothe a per- 
son of questionable morality in the hallowed ha- 
biliments of virtue, at his death, is — to say the 
least, wickedly trifling with that which should be 
deemed by all sober-minded and conscientious 
Christians, as sacred and inviolable ! 

After some sad and trying experience in the 
company of mourners, it is natural to look around 



* De mortuis nil nisi bonum ! 
12 



134 WHAT MAKES US UNHAPPY? 

us for some source of comfort, and I shall, there- 
fore, conclude this brief disquisition, with the 
following cheering, euphonious and hope-inspir- 
ing couplet of Longfellow, while, at the same 
time, the investigation, What makes us Unhappy ? 
may be considered terminated : 

11 Be still, sad heart, and cease repining; 
Behind the cloud is the sun still shining." 



THE END. 



